Bible Pay

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BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« on: November 21, 2020, 05:10:06 PM »
I am pleased to announce the alpha release of BIBLEPAY TV is now ready for testing on ROKU.

BiblePay TV has the long term goals of providing this functionality:

- Watch Christian TV, by category.  Some categories are:  Rapture videos, Christian Testimonies, Heaven, Hell, NDEs, Christian Movies, Salvation, Core Christianity.
- Sponsor an Orphan:  Sponsor an orphan with BIBLEPAY for a short duration (7 days), or medium or longer duration.  We are working on the ability to let you send BBP to your roku device using the Roku-ID as the receiving address.  Then you can SPEND BBP from your ROKU device just by entering your 4 digit BBP PIN code!
- Pay-Per-View (alpha):  This feature will let you watch a Christian Movie for a certain amount of BBP (similar to renting a movie).  This feature does not yet work, as we are currently trying to get the BBP-signing working for the coins!
- BBP Advertising Campaigns:  Since there are over 150 million roku devices out there, BBP TV is the perfect place to show off BIBLEPAY.  We are working on the ability to pay users (using our advertising budget) to watch BIBLEPAY TV.  Then they can see our 30 second ad, to raise awareness of the crypto.  This should drive some new user traffic into BBP.
- User Content Uploads:  You will have the ability as a user to add content to BIBLEPAY TV!  For now you can simply upload the video using the foundation link (here).  In the future as this gains traction we can decentralize the upload process by moving the link to our sanctuaries.
- ROKU MINING:  This proof-of-concept is not yet in alpha.  I will add a discussion link for this soon.  The idea with ROKU mining, is we could theoretically reward the coinbase mining reward to those distinct users who are watching BIBLEPAY TV.  I will address this in more detail.

How do I add BIBLEPAY TV to my ROKU:

We are not yet a public channel, and therefore you must log into your ROKU account from your PC and then click this link:
https://my.roku.com/account/add/biblepay

Our vanity access code is "biblepay".
Once added click your "HOME" screen on Roku and you should see the biblepay Logo!

If you don't have a ROKU device, you can buy a streaming stick for as low as $29 on amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Roku-Streaming-Stick-HDR-Streaming-Long-range/dp/B075XLWML4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=roku+stick&qid=1606005019&sr=8-1

All feedback is appreciated!


« Last Edit: November 21, 2020, 06:31:29 PM by Rob Andrews »


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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2020, 01:01:08 PM »
Hi Rob - intriguing ideas! How did you land on using Roku vs say ChromeCast, FireStick, etc?
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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2020, 01:17:24 PM »
Roku Mining overview:

This is just a rough idea of how roku mining would work.  We can then make a more concrete design in a wiki page.

Roku mining appears to be a novel and a useful idea.

One of the bigger issues this type of mining (appears to solve) on the surface is the greedy mining issue.  Greedy mining is the 'arms race' where the most powerful mining monopolies control the greatest share of the coinbase reward leaving the scraps for the home users.  This is something we've been discussing at biblepay since we started, and we never did find a solution to this (we wrote it off as an inherent impossibility in open source software).  An example of greedy mining is if John Doe makes $20 per month from mining activity that costs him $15 a month, he naturally goes out and tries to buy 10 servers to scale up.  This gives him an advantage, but why is John more privileged than the poor user that can only afford 1 server?  With Roku mining, we eliminate this effect by rewarding the distinct viewing activity.  (Security discussed below).

The other issue roku mining solves is the opensource distinct user dilemma (an opensource challenge-response dilemma).  This normally affects opensource systems in that any challenge presented to the end user can be circumvented by reverse engineering the opensource source code, thereby making it impossible to enforce distinct users, and valid captchas.  Ill give a couple examples.  In scenario A, we have John Doe who decides to circumvent the mining algorithm by creating 10 virtual machines, all running the same BBP code - or a person who signs up with 10 distinct email addresses, to link 10 servers to 10 accounts (if rewards were limited by email for example).  Since the code is opensource, he need only respond to the captcha with the right 'programmable response' and therefore will receive the full mining reward per account.  With ROKU, this attack vector is also eliminated, because the deviceid-captcha response is signed and cannot be scaled (see security details below), and when scaled onto multiple deviceIDs, a challenge response is required per device per duration watched.

I believe this gives us an exciting opportunity to design Roku Mining.

Lets talk about what this would look like for the end user, and how would it affect our popularity:

First a user who owns one roku device.  The user adds the biblepay channel, and then signs up for mining by running an associate-roku command (with the blockchain).  This command will store the roku-hardware-id and the users signature in the chain, therefore all sanctuaries will know we have a new distinct hwid and valid signature (as a miner).  Next, as the user browses playlists and watches Christian content, the device will keep track of how many streaming minutes are received (in a secure verifiable way, discussed in Security), and these will be buffered until the BBP network sends out a "challenge request".  The challenge request will go out to all the roku miners, presenting them with a pin dialog and a question.  The answer, being encrypted and secure, cannot be hacked using opensource hacking techniques (since it can only be answered by the individual roku device bearing the hwid and sig).  This challenge answer (an encrypted 4 digit PIN), will then "allow" the streaming minute content watched up from the last checkpoint to the current checkpoint to "count" towards the mining activity earned for this distinct device.  If the pin is not answered or is wrong, the buffer is lost and those mining rewards are lost for that session.  I imagine this challenge would be sent out once per day at a deterministic height - therefore giving every roku (sum of) minute(s) rewarded from the last checkpoint height to the new checkpoint height.

Then the sanctuaries will tally the roku hwid report by device id and minutes watched.  And then provide a GSC reward for all the linked device IDs.

If a person attempts to set up 5 rokus in their house, they will be able to receive more rewards based on total streaming time, as long as the challenges are each answered.  However we reserve the right to make the challenges more frequent on devices originating from the same IP segment (more on this in security).  For now, we can leverage the sha-256 hash of the users email address (which is associated with their roku devices) as a way to limit or slow scaling.  I believe it is possible to limit scaling, when you read the security section on encrypted code running in the roku.  (This is actually exciting because there is a distinct difference between roku code and opensource end user non-encrypted code).  Another words, I believe the mining activity can fully break monopolies and the report would show a very clear picture of the device-id-minutes ratio across the board in this system.  Its clearly strong enough to handle unique advertisements for large corporations per 15 minutes viewed, therefore I believe it will be strong enough for this use case.

Security:
Verifiable minutes watched:
This can be tracked in Roku in two levels:  Protected streamed content, and tamper proof captcha code.
A distinct difference in Roku (as compared to BiblePay c++) is the non-tamperable subroutine for the captcha.  If we send out a challenge request, a hacker cannot tamper (or gain access to the answer) because we signed the subroutine when we developed it.  If any code is changed or injected, it is not the same code.  So captchas can be relied on fully on the roku.
Also, we can track the minutes viewed verifiably (because protected content uses a key server).
Yes, a user can start a playlist and walk away from the screen, but they will only receive watching credits once they enter the captcha which will come up randomly.



« Last Edit: November 23, 2020, 10:31:59 AM by Rob Andrews »


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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2020, 10:24:34 AM »
Hi Rob - intriguing ideas! How did you land on using Roku vs say ChromeCast, FireStick, etc?

Earlier into the project I went more on the number of devices (150mm global) for roku, and its custom programming language allows for RSA keypairs, sha hashes, and primarily what I believe will be the ability to sign cryptocurrency coins with ecdsa within brightscript.  It also has a very secure OS, meaning the code that runs in the vm is encrypted (so no one can tamper with the subroutine) and I really like that for challenge-response.  It also supports any content provider, including Amazon and all the types of content protection.  (I remember I was also going by their impressive free content, I am not sure if Im correct about this but I believe Roku has more free content because they have more private free channels and of course channels like crackle etc).

I did look a little into chromecast, but personally Im a little put off by the Android SDK and how Ive been treated by google as a consumer (I almost feel like their model went from dont be evil to use the public to spy on them in general) - and I dont want to be unequally yoked.  I am not against another developer taking on chromecast in parallel, especially if the model is proven with roku (for example, if we increase our user base).

Looking more at the firestick, I see that they do allow HTML5 programming code to be run, which is a pro for the ecdsa signing library (meaning we might eventually be able to have a branch that signs coins from the firestick) although Im wary of the fact they have jailbroken devices out there, meaning the captcha probably wont work.  I also know nothing about the code submit process, so again this would be a perfect example of an effort by a third dev in parallel.  Although if I have time I wouldnt mind writing a quick poc in html5 for the firestick after the roku is done just to evaulate its security (and its coin signing ability).

« Last Edit: November 23, 2020, 10:27:44 AM by Rob Andrews »


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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2020, 10:43:52 AM »
Now for the million dollar question:

If we go through the effort of creating Roku Mining, and we claim to be the first crypto rewarding users for watching TV, and we even have a 30 second ad that shows up occasionally about our features, the question is what kind of impact would this make as compared to our standard plain vanilla launch parameters?

Lets pretend that we offer a very healthy 30MM BBP per month (IE roughly a full coinbase reward level) fro ROKU mining per month (and Im thinking about paying a high percentage of this from my personal account to get this going).  Assuming we emitted a million coins a day, which is about $100 a day in rewards, I believe this is roughly equivalent to about 600 concurrent 'tv miners' being added (based on people being happy to watch tv if they are making more than $5 per month.

What we really need is to convert 1% of these new users into long term community members (and investors) who help drive our price back up.

So imho, the big test case would be to roll out the infrastructure, raise the reward, test it for 3-6 months and actually monitor how many new users join and somehow measure how many convert to long term investors.  I have a feeling that BBP has not scratched the surface of its potential simply because we never asked God to drive the whales in.  All we need are a few whales who made their money through Mammon their entire lives and that wake up and realize we are in the end times and that their money no longer matters, and its better served by investing in this project and helping orphans, etc.  Why let it perish with you?

Thats the plan so far.  If 2% of the 600 new users become investors, thats 12 new investors.  In addition these 600 theoretical miners will tell their neighbors, and then success follows.

So far I like how this idea is all encompassing, in that it theoretically solves all of our problems at once.  I said this before about RX, I know, however one difference between RX and TV is TV is something everyone already has and RX is more of a niche for power users.  (I do not plan on killing RX btw, I think we need to save the infrastructure and evaluate RX, TV, PODC and let the best system win for BBP).  Then we streamline BBP after we find out what makes us succeed.  The TV feature also spreads the gospel.

Obviously if we do succeed we will need a lot of original content.  So there is a ton of work to do.  But instead of creating it all ourselves we can make partnerships with churches who want their feed on our channel, etc.  This is the perfect opportunity to add 'Core Christianity' to the service.



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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2020, 12:57:33 PM »
On the publisher/content creator side, is there a plan for compensation to encourage uploading of video content? maybe there's a slider where they can put 10% to 100% of their earnings toward orphan sponsorship? if there's a way to partner with a major ad network, then that's an additional source of funds to sponsor orphans or pay miners on top of BBP. Not sure how popular Christian/religious ads are though...
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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #6 on: November 24, 2020, 10:28:20 AM »
On the publisher/content creator side, is there a plan for compensation to encourage uploading of video content? maybe there's a slider where they can put 10% to 100% of their earnings toward orphan sponsorship? if there's a way to partner with a major ad network, then that's an additional source of funds to sponsor orphans or pay miners on top of BBP. Not sure how popular Christian/religious ads are though...
Great question Sun!

Although there is no (creator side) plan yet, I fully agree that we need one on the creation side because what good would all this be if we dont have constantly fresh content, non-copyrighted content and valuable content that is completely legal? 

I agree it would be so awesome to make a partnership with a feed that wants their videos on our platform.  I can just see making a deal with ISN (Sid Roth) for example, and churches, and companies that provide core Christianity information.  I was actually thinking yesterday on a semi-related note, one useful feature for BiblePay would even be for public and private streaming rooms.  For example I want to hang a Roku TV in my media area (where I plan on putting my pulpit that I bought when the coronavirus started), and I thought it would be really useful to upload a Christian movie from my computer to a streaming room in BBP (and pay BBP say 5000 bbp for rental of the room), and anyone can stream the 'contents of the room' onto their Roku TV using our roku channel.  I would use the service myself when I have church, etc.  Then I dont need an HDMI transmitter or a PC in that room for example.  Also pastors could use our services for preaching.  They could rent a Sermon room and get all the material, and we could send the fee right into the DAC donation address.

Anyway Im very open to ideas on the content creator side.  For now, this is how plain vanilla the creation side is:  They can be rewarded for uploading quality and non-copyrighted content to a foundation URL.  Ill see if I can put together a bounty system myself for this.

I think we need to roll out an alpha version of mining to get all this up - and this will be for proof-of-concept.  Maybe Ill implement this in foundation.biblepay.org completely with the 1mil per day mining rewards (and a chunk of that for content creation), try to roll this out in 14 days and go-live, and test it for 90 days - and if its successful then I will go through the pain of decentralizing the mining packets and the URL over to the sanctuaries for a longer term project.  (This way if this utterly fails we can just stop it).

I feel like "success" would be surpassing our original launch miner count (I believe we had about 350 podc miners with about 100 being POBH miners but no more than 350).  If we surpass 350 viewers, and add at least 10 new videos, and at least 10 new active members to the forum, and 1 new whale, I think we could say 'success', and shift gears towards Roku mining. 

Im on board with going towards full scale programming to push this roku mining endeavor out on Dec 15th.

Again I welcome more ideas on the content creator other than simply video uploads. 


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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2020, 02:31:11 PM »
** BBP Roku Mining is going Live in 30 minutes ! **

https://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=746.msg9313#msg9313




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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2020, 09:36:43 PM »
I will need to buy a Roku, but was curious how payment is working. It is paid via XMR? Or is it XMR and BBP? I noticed on the foundation site, the address I had for XMR is also for XMR & Roku now.
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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #9 on: December 03, 2020, 10:55:10 AM »
I will need to buy a Roku, but was curious how payment is working. It is paid via XMR? Or is it XMR and BBP? I noticed on the foundation site, the address I had for XMR is also for XMR & Roku now.

I waited about 7 days and didnt see any miners, so I started to reverse course and close the program down.

However if anyone wants to link into our ROKU channel and check out BiblePay TV they can still do that.

I'm a little concerned that we are getting spread too thin, and without backing, I'm apprehensive about spending a massive amount of time on things that dont get used.

After I finish the DAC, Ill probably revisit the ability to spend BBP from BBP TV to sponsor an orphan however. 



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Re: BiblePay TV (Alpha release) - for ROKU TV
« Reply #10 on: December 04, 2020, 03:55:27 AM »

Any new features need time to mature and be promoted. I was advertising this new feature. Its a shame you stopped it abruptly.

I waited about 7 days and didnt see any miners, so I started to reverse course and close the program down.

However if anyone wants to link into our ROKU channel and check out BiblePay TV they can still do that.

I'm a little concerned that we are getting spread too thin, and without backing, I'm apprehensive about spending a massive amount of time on things that dont get used.

After I finish the DAC, Ill probably revisit the ability to spend BBP from BBP TV to sponsor an orphan however.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2020, 10:27:32 AM by sunk818 »
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