Disclosure
As an elected member of the Nimiq Community Council, I retain the right to submit proposals to the Council, but I will not vote on this proposal and I am not asking for any favorable treatment in its evaluation. This proposal should be reviewed on the same merits — and held to the same standards — as any proposal submitted by a non-Council applicant.
1. Overview
This proposal combines two Nimiq ecosystem initiatives under a single monthly budget of $12,000/month, split between two workstreams that will increasingly work in tandem:
- $10,000/month — shadcn.io development, Gold Sponsorship, Nimiq templates, documentation, UI blocks, and AI-powered developer tooling.
- $2,000/month — NimiqHub: the free, public Nimiq blockchain explorer and its open APIs, used by the community and by staking pools.
These two products are designed to become more integrated over time — shared components, shared APIs, shared developer experience — so that builders moving between “exploring the chain” and “shipping on the chain” get one coherent path.
shadcn.io Gold Sponsorship
shadcn.io is the largest community-owned shadcn website, with serious organic reach: 892K Google clicks and 23.9M search impressions over the last 6 months (3.7% CTR, average position 6.9). Builders come here in droves to download, use, and discover new tech.
What shadcn.io actually offers developers:
- Thousands of UI blocks ready to drop into any React project
- design.md for AI devs — structured design guidance built for how developers code with AI in 2026
- Hundreds of thousands of icons for developers
- Many templates to kickstart projects
- An MCP server that plugs straight into AI coding workflows, helping 2026 AI-assisted devs ship faster and better
Critically, this audience is builders, not crypto-natives — developers shipping real products. That makes it an ideal channel for Nimiq:
- Reaches React developers Nimiq currently doesn’t touch. The React community is one of the largest developer communities in the world and is largely underserved by Nimiq today. Gold Sponsorship puts Nimiq directly in their workflow.
- Perfect feeder for the Web App Competition. The exact skills shadcn.io’s audience already has — React, modern UI, shipping fast — are the skills Nimiq needs for its app competition. Sponsorship surfaces Nimiq to the right people at the right time.
- shadcn/ui itself is the dominant UI stack in 2026. Now maintained by Vercel, shadcn/ui has become the preferred way to build React UIs with AI, and has been cloned into other ecosystems (Vue, Svelte, Solid). Being the Gold Sponsor of the largest community-owned shadcn website is high-leverage placement.
As Gold Sponsor, Nimiq gets:
- Free Nimiq templates for everyone. Production-ready, fully open templates built specifically for Nimiq, given away free on shadcn.io — so any developer has a real starting point for building Nimiq apps instead of facing a blank editor.
- Documentation around the Nimiq stack. Practical, developer-facing docs and guides covering how to actually build with Nimiq — wallet integration, payments, staking, transactions — published alongside the templates so the path from “curious” to “shipping” is short.
- Nimiq-themed UI blocks (wallet connect, payment forms, staking dashboards, transaction displays) added to the library for any developer to drop into their project.
- AI-powered developer tools around Nimiq — things like MCP integrations, design.md for AI-assisted coding, and similar tooling that meets developers inside their AI workflows, so when they ask their coding assistant for help building something, Nimiq is part of the answer.
- Gold Sponsor branding — header/footer badge, dedicated Nimiq section, contextual mentions across the site.
- High-authority dofollow backlinks to nimiq.com from a high-traffic site, directly improving domain authority and search rankings.
NimiqHub: Free Explorer + Open APIs
NimiqHub (nimiqhub.com) is the comprehensive Nimiq blockchain explorer and its associated public APIs — a free community service, distinct from any validator operations. Built and self-funded since the PoS launch, NimiqHub provides:
- Real-time block, transaction, and validator data through the explorer interface
- The NimiqHub API, which is actively used by community staking pools and other community projects to display analytics and network data
- Staking statistics and network health monitoring
This portion of the budget funds the free public explorer and APIs only — not validator operations, which are a separate matter and self-sustaining. The goal is to make sure this critical community infrastructure stays online, keeps improving, and remains free to use, rather than depending indefinitely on personal funding.
2. Problem Solved
- Reach a developer audience Nimiq currently isn’t reaching. React developers building real products — the exact profile Nimiq needs for adoption and the Web App Competition.
- Lower the friction for building on Nimiq. Free templates, drop-in blocks, proper documentation, and AI-powered tooling let developers ship Nimiq apps quickly using the workflows they already prefer — including their AI coding assistants.
- SEO at a scale that’s nearly impossible to buy. Backlinks from a high-authority, high-traffic developer site directly lift nimiq.com’s rankings.
- Sustain critical community infrastructure. The NimiqHub explorer and its APIs — used by pools and the wider community — stay reliably online and improving.
3. Budget
$12,000/month total, split as follows:
$10,000/month — shadcn.io track
- shadcn.io Gold Sponsor placement and branding
- Development of free Nimiq templates and documentation around the Nimiq stack
- Ongoing development of Nimiq-themed UI blocks, maintained as the stack evolves (Tailwind, React, Next.js updates)
- AI-powered developer tools around Nimiq (MCP, design.md, and similar tooling for AI-assisted developers)
- Marketing and content efforts directed at the shadcn.io audience
$2,000/month — NimiqHub track (free explorer + APIs only)
- Hosting and infrastructure for the public explorer and APIs
- RPC and indexing infrastructure
- Ongoing maintenance, bug fixes, and improvements
- API support for community pools and projects that depend on it
This budget does not fund validator operations, which are a separate, self-sustaining activity.
What the budget actually covers
It’s worth being clear that this is not pure margin. Running shadcn.io and NimiqHub at this scale carries real, ongoing costs that come out of the monthly budget before anything else:
- AI costs — LLM API usage for the MCP server, AI-assisted tooling, content generation, and development workflows. These are usage-based and scale with traffic.
- Server and infrastructure costs — hosting, CDN, RPC nodes, indexing, database, and bandwidth for both shadcn.io (handling 150K+ monthly clicks) and NimiqHub (real-time blockchain data and public APIs).
- Email marketing costs — newsletter platform and outreach tooling to actually reach the developer audience promised in this proposal.
- Freelancer costs — design, development, and content help when scope or speed requires more than one person can deliver.
- My own time — across development, design, devrel, community management, and Council reporting.
The $12K/month covers all of the above and only then represents any take-home for the work itself. Council members weighing this proposal should know they’re funding a real operation with real costs, not a flat consulting fee.
Integration between the two tracks
The two products are designed to converge: NimiqHub APIs powering Nimiq blocks and templates on shadcn.io, shared developer tooling, consistent UX between explorer and apps built with the templates. Funding both under one proposal means this integration can actually happen rather than living across two disconnected efforts.
Monthly reporting to the Council is covered across both tracks.
4. Commitment, Payment & Termination Terms
This proposal asks for a 6-month initial commitment ($72,000 total over months 1–6).
The 6-month window is required for two reasons:
- Several deliverables only pay off over time. SEO backlinks compound, templates need adoption to show impact, AI tooling needs developers to discover and use it, and integration between shadcn.io and NimiqHub is meaningful work that can’t be done in a single month. Committing for less than 6 months would mean shutting down before the work has had a chance to demonstrate results.
- It allows real planning and investment. With a 6-month runway, I can hire freelancers, commit to infrastructure, and plan content campaigns. Month-to-month uncertainty makes that impossible.
Payment schedule
- Payments are made at the start of each month — on the 1st, in advance, covering that month’s work.
- This is standard practice for retainer-based work and is necessary because the costs being funded (AI usage, server infrastructure, email marketing, freelancers) all need to be paid up front, not in arrears.
- The first payment is due on the 1st of the month the engagement begins, following proposal acceptance.
- Monthly reports for the previous month are submitted by the 5th of the following month, providing the Council a clear record of what each payment funded.
Termination
After the initial 6 months: the partnership continues on a rolling monthly basis. The Council can end the partnership at any point from month 7 onward with 30 days’ written notice — no questions asked, no justification required. The final payment will be the one covering the 30-day notice period. This gives the Council a clean off-ramp the moment results stop justifying the spend, while giving the work a fair window to prove itself first.
During the initial 6 months, the Council also retains the right to terminate early for cause — meaning failure to deliver, lack of meaningful progress in monthly reports, or non-compliance with Council guidelines. In that case, the month already paid for is completed and no further payments are owed.
5. Deliverables
- Nimiq Gold Sponsor presence across shadcn.io
- Free, open Nimiq templates published on shadcn.io as starting points for developers
- Documentation covering the Nimiq stack, published alongside the templates
- Ongoing additions of Nimiq-themed UI blocks to the library
- AI-powered developer tools around Nimiq (MCP, design.md, and similar) for AI-assisted development
- Marketing and content promoting Nimiq to shadcn.io’s developer audience
- NimiqHub explorer and public APIs: continued operation, maintenance, and improvements
- Progressive integration between shadcn.io Nimiq tooling and NimiqHub APIs
- Monthly reports to the Council
Verification: All work is publicly verifiable at shadcn.io and nimiqhub.com; monthly written reports submitted to the Council forum thread.
6. Working Model & Reporting
This proposal intentionally avoids fixed, date-locked milestones. The scope spans several distinct workstreams — Gold Sponsor presence, free Nimiq templates, stack documentation, UI blocks, AI-powered tooling, marketing, and the NimiqHub explorer/APIs — and the right thing to prioritize in any given month depends on what the ecosystem actually needs at that moment.
Rather than committing in advance to “feature X by date Y” and ending up doing the wrong work on schedule, I’ll prioritize across the listed deliverables based on impact: what’s most useful for Nimiq developers, what unblocks the Web App Competition, what NimiqHub needs to stay reliable, and what’s getting traction with the shadcn.io audience.
Accountability comes through transparency, not fixed milestones:
- Monthly report submitted to the Council forum thread by the 5th of each month, summarizing everything shipped the previous month across both tracks — templates published, blocks added, docs written, AI tooling work, NimiqHub changes, marketing activity, integration progress, metrics.
- Everything is publicly verifiable on shadcn.io and nimiqhub.com at any time — the Council doesn’t need to wait for a report to see progress.
This gives the Council full visibility, while giving me the flexibility to actually do the most useful work each month instead of optimizing for a checklist.
7. Compliance
- Lead: Dov Azencot. Contact available to Council on request.
- Communications: All Nimiq-related pages will be clear and non-misleading. No financial advice, price predictions, or investment solicitations. Nimiq is presented as a developer tool. NimiqHub displays blockchain data factually.
- Risk: Non-custodial throughout. NimiqHub displays public blockchain data only. No user data collected beyond standard subscription data on shadcn.io.
- Wallet: Provided on acceptance, with sanctions/AML screening acknowledged.
- Attestation: Compliant with Council guidelines (legal, gambling, financial advice, sanctions, fraud). Funds will not be used for prohibited purposes. Conflicts and material risks will be disclosed. Monthly reporting and payout suspension for non-compliance accepted. Not a sanctioned individual or from a sanctioned country.
- No gambling, wagering, or financial advice. No trading signals or guaranteed returns. Monthly payouts in advance with public reporting accepted.
8. Resources
- shadcn.io — sponsorship and integration platform
- nimiqhub.com — self-funded blockchain explorer and APIs
About the Proposer
Few people sit at the intersection of Nimiq and the broader web developer ecosystem the way I do.
On the Nimiq side:
- Built and maintained NimiqHub, the free Nimiq blockchain explorer and its public APIs, self-funded since the PoS launch. The APIs are actively used by community staking pools and other community projects.
- Separately, operator of the largest validator on the Nimiq network since the PoS launch — directly supporting network security and decentralization. (Validator operations are independent of this proposal.)
- Met the Nimiq team in person and have been an active community contributor. Deep understanding of Nimiq, its architecture, and what the ecosystem actually needs.
On the shadcn side:
- Founder of shadcn.io, which I built from zero into the largest community-owned shadcn website — thousands of blocks, hundreds of thousands of icons, templates, design.md for AI devs, and an MCP for AI-assisted coding. Fully organic growth. I created and run this community myself.
This combined expertise is what makes this proposal executable: I understand both sides deeply, control the platform on the shadcn side, and have the technical context on the Nimiq side to integrate, ship, and maintain it properly.