[BLUED] Grants Off-chain Proposal
Suggested Title: [2503 Grant Application] BLUED
Project Name: BLUED
Submission Date: 2025.04.25
Founder Name: Seungwon Kim, Jaewon Kim from Bluenode
Award Amount: To be determined
Project Stage: MVP Completed
Sector: Education / Community Tools / DAO Infrastructure
Links to Deck: https://www.figma.com/design/ytbCLuSrofmm8OTGCF8Xgi/BLUED?node-id=0-1&t=bmSS8OFEpSHzSnfZ-1
**Links to X: ** @web3bluenode
Description
BLUED is a blockchain-based Contribution Evaluation and Reward System developed for academic and non-profit communities. It addresses the longstanding problem of unclear contribution standards and imbalanced incentives in collaborative environments such as student organizations, research groups, and educational cohorts.
By introducing transparent, metric-based contribution tracking and smart contract-powered rewards, BLUED promotes fairness and sustained engagement. The MVP has been implemented and tested within Bluenode, a university blockchain research club, and has shown promising results in motivating participation and recognizing core contributors.
Looking forward, BLUED aims to become a DAO-native community management framework that can serve other academic and mission-driven organizations. Inspired by Rootstock Collective’s incentive and governance model, we ultimately envision BLUED evolving into a contribution-based governance layer that integrates with platforms such as Rootstock to support decentralized coordination at scale.
Mission
To empower academic and mission-driven communities with a fair and transparent contribution-based reward and governance system—starting with monetary incentives and expanding toward DAO-native, decentralized coordination aligned with the values of long-term participation, public benefit, and collective growth.
Product
BLUED is a decentralized tool that enables communities to measure and reward contributions using blockchain. Key features include:
- Predefined, transparent metrics for evaluating diverse forms of member contributions
- Smart contract-powered reward automation to ensure trust and accountability
- Integration potential with DAO platforms such as Rootstock Collective for decentralized task management and incentive distribution
- Configurability for use across different academic, nonprofit, and grassroots communities
While initially focused on monetary rewards, BLUED is designed with long-term adaptability in mind, including the future introduction of governance tokens and community-driven policy setting.
Team
Seungwon Kim – Project Planning & PM, UI/UX Design, Frontend Development
Jaewon Kim – Project Planning & PM, Full stack Development
Seohyun Lee – Full Stack Development
Jiho Park – Frontend Development
Jaewon Lee – Frontend Development
Wonpil Jung – Backend Development
Sungjin Ahn – Backend Development
Sechang Choi – Smart Contract Development
Traction (Short term)
Community Size: 70 total members in the Bluenode academic club, with 25 actively participating in the current cohort using BLUED
Core Contributor Growth: BLUED is designed to increase the number of core contributors (currently ~5) by offering meaningful incentives for active involvement
Improved Fund Allocation: Enables transparent use of membership fees and better aligns financial distribution with real member engagement
Positive Pilot Feedback: Internal pilot has demonstrated increased accountability, participation consistency, and member satisfaction
Roadmap
~ April 30: Finalize UI/UX design / Complete all design assets and components / Begin frontend implementation based on finalized wireframes and design system
~ May 16: Complete both backend and frontend development individually / Integrate frontend and backend components into a working system / Begin internal end-to-end functionality checks
~ June 18: Conduct comprehensive QA and testing across modules / Finalize system for initial rollout / Prepare for pilot deployment during the summer academic break (late June onward)
Q3 2025 and beyond:
- Community Expansion: Extend BLUED to additional academic societies, research groups, and nonprofit communities to validate its scalability and adaptability in different organizational settings
-Governance Features: Design and implement governance token mechanics and community voting protocols, enabling decentralized decision-making within each community using BLUED
- Rootstock Integration: Explore full integration with Rootstock’s DAO ecosystem to position
BLUED as a decentralized task coordination and reward tool for broader mission-aligned DAOs and grantee networks
Conclusion
BLUED is more than a tool—it is a step toward solving a deeply felt problem in academic and nonprofit communities: the difficulty of recognizing and rewarding real contribution. Built from firsthand experience, it is a transparent, adaptable system designed for practical impact.
With this grant, we will refine our MVP, conduct deeper pilot deployments, and lay the foundation for a future where contribution-based coordination and reward systems can empower grassroots communities worldwide. Inspired by initiatives like Rootstock Collective, we hope to bridge the gap between local participation and global decentralized governance.
- Bluenode is Student Blockchain community, based at Inha university (Incheon, South korea).