Wishlist for the Circles app

For context, here the intro post from the Rocket chat.

*Dear all *
The last two days have been 2 big days for the Circles project. For the first time we shared publicly a test version of the first implementation of Circles. Circles itself is a product but an idea or a protocol. However - to bring this idea into the real world we need the protocol running somewhere and we need a product (a app) that allows people to interact with this protocol. Ethereum allows us define the simple rules/the protocol of Circles (issues of Circle “tokens”; adding and removing trust relationships; transfers and transitive transfers of Circles) as smart contract.
Mainly isthisa has build those contracts and they are rights now deployed on the Kovan test-network. Those contracts would not be any good to normal users. So we (mainly adz) created a simple mobile website (browser based app) that allows everyone to do the basic interaction with Circles.
You can check it out at http://circles.garden/

What will you see when you go there? You will get the option to “Create a new Circles wallet” (or if you are coming back connect your device to your already existing Circles wallet). Once you create a new wallet you first need to get “trusted” by 3 people that are already part of the system. You have a easy option to share your wallet in form of a link or a QR code.
Once 3 people trusted you (are willing to accept your Circles) you are part of Circles and you receive 100 Circles. After this every day 2 more. (for now)
You now start trusting others (e.g. those that trusted you) which will mean you can receive their Circles. Right now there probably the only place where you can buy something with Circles will be at Circle meetup that we will do biweekly in Berlin. However - we have a experimental telegram group as a market place. Lets see what happens.

All of this is a test for the “real launch” planned for summer this year. In the last 2 days we had 2 meetup and already the first ~30 people joined the system. You can find a graph of the trust connection that have been established here: https://circles-dashboard.netlify.com/
Finally, for those more technical, here you can see a “transitive transaction”. I was sending someone 5 Circles I was not directly connected with. Instead I send 5 Circles to person A who send 5 Circles (automatically) to person B and B finally was connected to the receiver.
https://kovan.etherscan.io/tx/0x614e5ae957592b4fa2075c52791c27d4411ba4b80e28f4a015ea9baedd58ce88

So - if you want to play around: go to https://circles.garden/ and post your link here so that 3 people can trust you and you can receive your first (test) Circles!!

I want to start this thread to create a wishlist of improvements for the “circles.garden” app.

1 Like
  1. Option to add a message/subject to sending Circles.
  2. Make it more clear that adding devices/ recovering from seed phrase is only possible after onboarding.
  3. On the home screen it shows currently all your connection you either trust or are trusted by (or both) I think the interface should show directly which one and e.g. remind you to trust people back.
  4. After onboarding (3 people trust you) you are not yet trusting anyone. At this stage the “receive Circles” button could be grayed out with a hint that you first need to trust people to receive Circles from the.
  5. “Invoice”/ “payment request” - define a amount and optionally a subject. Should be sharable via link or QR code. (check blockchain standards (lighting network, Raiden, request network, …) if we can reuse a standard)
  6. Consider renaming “adding trust” to “Grant a basic income”. This would make it more clear that you are willing to GIVE something to those you trust/add.
  7. Add to the onboarding a option to define “What are you providing for others”. The default can be “Nothing yet” but there could be other options like “Renting out my apartment in CITY”, …, and of course free text. If you click on a profile you would be able to see this Data. Consider using 3box for data storage.
  8. If I click on a profile (e.g get the link from someone to trust them) it would be helpful to see if they are already trusted by someone I trust.
  9. If people loose access to their safes we could make it a default setup that e.g. 2/3 of the first users the user trust can (potentially with a time delay) reset the owner.

for 5. we could consider using:
https://twitter.com/RequestNetwork/status/1247831840297308160