[Vote Proposal] Pay the X/Twitter API plan to have the Beam Butler bot back online on X/Twitter

BeamX DAO Proposals
1

[Preamble]

BIP#: <# to be assigned>
Title: Pay the Basic X/Twitter API plan ($100/month) to the Beam Butler bot for a duration of 6+6 months
Author(s): DB @dbadol
Contributors: TBD
Tags: Beam Butler bot, X, Twitter, Tipping, Adoption
Type: General BIP
Status: Special Proposal
Date Proposed: <2024-03-05>
Date Ratified: TBD
Dependencies: none
Replaces: none

[References]

[Sentence Summary]

  • Pay the Basic X/Twitter API plan ($100/month) to @vsnation’s Beam Butler bot for a duration of 6+6 months.

[Paragraph Summary]

  • We propose that the DAO pays the Basic X/Twitter API plan (at $100/month), for an initial period of 6 months (to be extended to 6 additional months if usage is good), so that @vsnation’s Beam Butler Bot can be used again on that platform. The main objective is to allow using the tip and envelope features, in order to increase visibility and adoption of Beam and its Confidential Assets.

[Motivation]

  • Despite its centralized and off-chain operation, the Beam Butler bot (developed and managed by long-time community dev @vsnation) has proven to be a useful and efficient community tool in Telegram.
  • It is currently used daily by many community members for tipping with both Beam and some Confidential Assets, for distributing CAs to other community members via “envelopes”, and for a few other useful tools (such as price, charts, FAQ, etc.).
  • The tool has a strong community-building effect (the Tico Coin Telegram chat, by instance, heavily relies on the Beam Butler bot for tipping and envelope dropping on community posts).
  • It is also an efficient way to promote Beam ecosystem and to attract new users (by allowing them to receive and send Beam and CAs instantly, without even needing to download and install a Beam wallet).
  • It also helps promotion and foments adoption thanks to its straightforward integration into a daily messaging and social media app.
  • The Beam Butler bot used to work both on Telegram and on X/Twitter. However, after the acquisition of X/Twitter by Elon Musk, the use of the API became a paid feature, with a basic cost of 100 USD/month (for 3,000 write and 10,000 read per month). Thus, the Beam Butler bot stopped being used on that platform.
  • The objective of this vote is to allow again the use of the bot on X/Twitter, for the main purpose of promotion and increase of use of Beam.

[Specification / Proposal Details]

  • It is proposed that the DAO pays the Basic X/Twitter API plan (at $100/month), for an initial period of 6 months, so that @vsnation can have the Beam Butler Bot working again on that platform.
  • The payment will be done directly to X/Twitter, or to @vsnation for him to take care of paying X/Twitter.
  • As a first estimate, it is considered that the Basic API plan at $100/month will be sufficient for the expected use of the bot. If the read/write limits were reached on a regular basis, a new vote would have to be held to decide about paying a higher API plan.
  • The Basic API plan will be paid initially for 6 months, with an automatic extension to 6 additional months if the usage of the bot on X/Twitter proves to be non-zero or almost zero (e.g. more than 10 calls per month on average).
  • After that, another vote will have to be held to extend the plan further than these 12 months.
  • In case the bot stops working and is not fixed for more than two weeks, the payments will be interrupted.

Remark: We thank @vsnation for the operation of the bot and the inclusion of certain new CAs in it. In case this vote is approved, we count on him to keep the bot working efficiently on X/Twitter, as a complement to the current use on Telegram.

3 Likes
2

I am a little puzzled. I think I’d much prefer to see the following two ideas first:

  1. We’re on the forum here, why can’t I go tipping people here? Shouldn’t we be eating our own dog food?

  2. Can we not incorporate a micro-payment into each and every twitter bot action? If one day the bot became profitable, the surplus could be spent on advertising. Am not expecting it to be profitable on day one or day 180 but at least show a little idea of how this could be self-sustainable in the future.

In general for all DAO proposals, I only want to support those that are trying to reach escape velocity and not become wholly dependent on the DAO.

1 Like
3

Because there’s no tipping bot for the forum.

Depends if @vsnation is willing to develop that

3 Likes
4

I think that the main (sole?) aim of putting back the tipping bot on X/Twitter now is to help promote Beam and have it known by new people, with an easy on-boarding solution.

So, yes, developing a tipping bot for this forum makes sense. But it will not serve the purpose of helping attract new users.

Also, the Beam Butler bot is ready and it works. We only need to pay the API plan to have it back online on X/Twitter!

1 Like
5

Regarding the second idea, I think we can keep it for later.

It would make sense, as the formal BeamX DAO DApp do indeed pay a micro fee to the DAO Vault (DEX, BANS, etc and even Nephrite which although developed by an anon team has been adopted as a BeamX DAO DApp).

Remark: As of today, the Beam Bot is not a BeamX DAO app per se. It’s a personal development of @vsnation, managed by him (it’s custodial solution) and made available to the community.

2 Likes