The Bounties Network

The Bounties Network is a decentralized freelance and task outsourcing platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. Development began in early 2017, spearheaded by founder Mark Beylin, a computer science and business administration graduate from the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University, respectively. Beylin, an early employee at ConsenSys, leveraged his experience in the Ethereum ecosystem to create a generalized protocol for bounties. The platform was a collaborative effort involving co-founders Simona Pop, who led marketing and community, and Will Villanueva as CTO.

The core of the business is a decentralized application (dApp) that allows users, referred to as bounty issuers, to post tasks and offer rewards in any ERC-20 token, with ETH and DAI being the most popular. This model serves a global client base, connecting individuals and organizations with a diverse pool of talent for tasks ranging from software development and bug fixes to content creation, research, and social impact projects. The platform operates without charging fees to the issuer or fulfiller, meaning 100% of the bounty amount goes to the person completing the task, differentiating it from traditional freelance marketplaces. Revenue streams are not based on transaction fees but on fostering a self-organizing ecosystem.

The platform's primary product is the Bounties Explorer, an open-source interface for interacting with the network. To create a bounty, an issuer provides a detailed description, defines deliverables, sets requirements, and specifies the reward amount. This information is stored on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to ensure decentralization, with only a hash of the content stored on the Ethereum blockchain. Freelancers, or bounty fulfillers, can then browse, complete tasks, and receive automated payments upon submission acceptance. A key technical achievement was the development of StandardBounties, a community-driven open-source standard for implementing bounties on Ethereum, ensuring interoperability between different dApps and marketplaces. The protocol has evolved to support non-fungible token (NFT) rewards and dynamic payouts, allowing for more flexible compensation models. To address potential conflicts, the network also incorporates Delphi, a decentralized arbitration and staking mechanism to nurture on-chain trust.

Keywords: decentralized freelancing, Ethereum bounties, blockchain jobs, task outsourcing, ERC-20 payments, smart contracts, gig economy, peer-to-peer marketplace, open-source bounties, crypto rewards, task management, Mark Beylin, ConsenSys, StandardBounties, IPFS, Web3 collaboration, decentralized arbitration, token economy, content creation bounties, software development tasks, social impact bounties