[2503 Grant Application] BLUED

[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).
2 Likes

This looks like an interesting grant application which should be exactly what this collective should be funding.

Can you provide an estimation about the amount you had in mind? Also use of funds and milestones would be good to see. It’s not clear to me if you wish the collective to fund your roadmap or the integration part.

Edit: The Figma is in Korean. Do you have it in English or is the text above the translation?

2 Likes