Merge Rewards is a fully automated bounty and sponsorship service for GitHub.

Go to:
merge-rewards.com

^{(Only GitHub account required.)
Repository}

I figured out now how the fiat integration can look like and I think it will be really cool and useful. I'm a little bit excited. :D I think it's a good moment to share my updated "vision" for this project.

For the fiat deposits there is a bank account at the Fidor Bank located in Germany. I must admit that I am not that experienced with banking APIs but Fidor Solutions offers something that I can work with. It's also possible to reserve money for specific purposes which could be useful, to make sure deposited money will not accidentally be used for something else.

Here is a list of the key features:

Primary Features

^{(Independent of STEEM)}

Donate money to any GitHub user or organization.

The user/org just needs to connect to their GitHub account on merge-rewards.com to withdraw it. You don't need to exchange bank account information or addresses directly.

Deposit money on any issue as a bounty.

Users can claim the bounty automatically with a pull request or the issue owner can release it manually to any user at any time.

Deposit money on a project.

The project owner can use it to set up bounties or to reward users directly when merging their pull requests.

Use fiat or cryptocurrency for all of the above.

Various payment methods provide easy ways to financially support open source work on GitHub. (There is no exchange between fiat and crypto. If you deposit crypto only crypto can be withdrawn. If you deposit fiat only fiat can be withdrawn.)

Secondary Features

^{(Depending on STEEM)}

Claim cryptocurrency rewards for your merged pull requests.

STEEM's proof-of-brain algorithm ensures a fair share of STEEM tokens for all of your merged pull requests in other peoples projects.

Support GitHub users with boosters

Boosters are consumable and transferable items that can be used by GitHub users to increase rewards for their pull requests.

Boost bounties with Steem post

Issues you create a bounty for can be posted to the Steem blockchain to generate extra rewards. Requires a Steem account.

Claim your own Steem account

Once you earned some rewards you can use them to claim your own Steem account if you don't have one. This will permanently increase the rewards for your pull requests and enable you to boost bounties with a Steem post.

Invest in STEEM

Buy Seem Power to increase cryptocurrency rewards for pull requests, either for all projects or only individual ones, and earn interest on your investment.

Browser Plugin

A browser plugin adds functionality directly on github.com to claim rewards for pull requests, set up issue bounties, donate to users/organizations and warn project owners before merging a pull request if there's a bounty attached to on issue that the pull request closes.

Worth mentioning

• All transactions on merge-rewards.com are recorded on the Steem blockchain and are therefore permanent and immutable.
• Issue and project deposits can be refunded at any time as long as they are not released to a user. Direct donations can be refunded as long as they are not claimed by the user/org.
• Bounty deposits and claimed pull request rewards trigger a bot comment on the issue/pull request on GitHub.
• Subscribe to the Open Bounties issue to be notified about new bounties directly on GitHub.

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Again, most of the above does not represent the status quo but my current vision for this project. Actually implemented is only the following:

• create bounties for issues and deposit
• releasing bounties (automatically and manually)
• withdraw cryptocurrency (through blocktrades API)
• claim rewards for pull requests
• buy boosters with PayPal
• transfer/use boosters
• create Steem account (from previously earned rewards)
• history is stored on blockchain

And all of this is not even really stable and robust code, at least to my feeling. I could really need some help. The feedback I got so far is all positive but unfortunately there is not much response to the posts here on Steem. I wonder if that's due to my writing skills or the topic itself or the current market situation.

I think this project, if done right, has the potential to draw a lot of qualified attention to the Steem blockchain and eventually have a positive effect on the price. And as I mentioned earlier I think it could be actually a really great and useful tool for open source projects and contributors.
If you agree consider taking a look at the repository and the open issues. There are actually bounties on three of them, worth 100 SBD! If I had more money there would be more. And of course a delegation is highly appreciated.

Ok, I hope I was able to catch the attention of some new people and maybe the follower count will go up a bit again. I will dive into the fidor API now.

@mkt