Introduction
Project Name: Snap2Sale
Name of the organization or individual submitting the proposal: Bustedware LLC
Describe your project.
The Snap2Sale project is a web platform that enables photographers to upload, watermark, and sell their photos directly to buyers. Photos are uploaded directly to the Sia network from trusted sellers. For new or unverified sellers, images are temporarily stored in AWS S3 for moderation using OpenAI before being committed to Sia for permanent decentralized storage.
To simplify onboarding and increase trust, Snap2Sale supports secure oauth-based sign-ins with Google and Apple. This ensures quick access with reduced friction, especially on mobile devices, and reinforces strong authentication practices aligned with modern security standards. Alternatively, users can also create an account directly with the platform after verifying their email with a OTP sent to their email address.
Snap2Sale protects uploaded photos through a secure watermarking system that balances performance with strong content protection. When a user goes to upload images, Snap2Sale displays a preview immediately by overlaying watermarks on top of the images in the browser. This is purely for visual feedback during the upload process and no actual watermarking is done client-side. This protects the platform from non premium users watermarking their photos with custom images and saving the resulting preview image to their computers.
Once the image is uploaded, the backend generates and stores four versions of each image: the original full image, a thumbnail for quick loading, a watermarked thumbnail, and a full-size watermarked image. Watermarking is done server-side to ensure the watermark is embedded securely and can’t be removed unless bought and paid for. These processed watermarked versions are what users see in their albums and detail views.
The platform facilitates payments through PayPal and collects a 1.0% fee from each sale for the platform owner. Buyers and sellers can both use the platform for free. Sellers can upgrade to a premium tier to unlock more storage and features.
Architecture diagram:
Who benefits from your project?
Independent/professional photographers and digital artists benefit from Snap2Sale by gaining a secure, professional platform to showcase, protect, and sell their work directly to customers. Buyers also benefit by easily discovering and purchasing their content directly from the source.
How does the project serve the Foundation’s mission of user-owned data?
Snap2Sale aligns with the Foundation’s mission by ensuring photographers retain full ownership and control over their images, sales, and data. While Snap2Sale facilitates image storage on the Sia network, users remain the ultimate owners of their content.
We cannot provide grants to residents of jurisdictions under increased FATF monitoring, those that have active OFAC sanctions, or those that fail our bank compliance tests. We also cannot provide grants if your payment bank account is located in those same locations. Please review the following list.
Are you a resident of any jurisdiction on that list? No
Will your payment bank account be located in any jurisdiction on that list? No
Grant Specifics
Amount of money requested and justification with a comprehensive breakdown of expenses: $115,000 for full time salary and ongoing infrastructure costs
| Expense | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend Development | $22,000 | Responsive UI, album manager, photo viewer, buyer flow, and mobile optimization |
| Backend Development | $23,000 | NodeJS, image watermarking, payments, session/auth, S3/SQS/SES/OpenAI integration |
| Database Design & Integration | $7,500 | MongoDB schema, indexing, queries/aggregations, transaction logging |
| Payment Integration | $6,000 | PayPal PPCP setup, partner referral, subscriptions, order management |
| Image Processing & AI Integration | $6,000 | Watermarking pipeline, OpenAI classification, moderation tools |
| Cloud Infrastructure (AWS) | $12,000 | ECS, S3, SQS, SES, IAM roles, Terraform & Ansible for automation |
| DevOps & Security | $6,000 | CI/CD, TLS, Secrets Manager, session security, rate limiting |
| UI/UX & Graphic Design | $5,000 | Brand identity, logos, icons, watermark styles, mobile layouts |
| Testing & QA | $5,000 | Cross-browser/device testing, bug fixes, performance optimization |
| Admin Tools & Analytics | $3,500 | Admin panel, order tracking, usage stats, image flags |
| Legal & Compliance | $2,500 | Terms of service, privacy policy |
| Marketing Site & Video | $6,000 | Landing page, promotional video |
| Contingency / Support | $10,500 | Buffer for unforeseen costs, post-launch fixes, early user support |
Timeline with measurable objectives and goals. REQUIRED: Milestones with which to judge your progress. Milestones should be easy for the Grants Committee to understand and evaluate as your project moves through its term. The Committee reserves the right to accept, modify, or reject proposed milestones to ensure they represent thoughtful and reasonable project evaluation checkpoints. Further payments may be withheld for missed milestones.
The Snap2Sale platform was primarily developed during Q1 and Q2 2025.
Potential risks that will affect the outcome of the project:
While the core Snap2Sale platform is fully built, potential risks to its long-term success include:
- User Adoption: The platform’s success depends on attracting and retaining photographers and buyers.
- Infrastructure Costs: Ongoing costs to maintain decentralized storage and cloud infrastructure may challenge sustainability without sufficient revenue / user adoption.
- Content Moderation: As user activity increases, effective image moderation and abuse prevention will become more resource-intensive. Snap2Sale relies on OpenAI as its front line of defense for ensuring content is with Snap2Sale’s acceptable use policy. In the case of a false negative, Snap2Sale relies on its users to report content violations in which moderators of the Snap2Sale platform would be called to action to review the unacceptable content.
- Payment Platform Dependency: Reliance on third-party services like PayPal may pose risks if APIs change or accounts are restricted.
- Regulatory Compliance: Changes in laws around digital content, copyright, or financial transactions could require adjustments to the platform.
These risks will be mitigated through active user onboarding, gradual scaling based on usage, and legal consultation especially with regards to sales tax.
The platform acting as a marketplace comes with certain tax obligations which have not been fully accounted for, at least not in any kind of automated way. Snap2Sales initial release includes an integration with Docusign for collecting W9 forms for EOY 1099k US based filings.
We are exploring redundancy options (backup hosting nodes or multi-host uploads) in case Sia node availability becomes a bottleneck or experiences significant reliability concerns/issues.
Development Information
Will all of your project’s code be open-source?
Yes. Upon grant approval the code will be shared publicly in GitHub.
Leave a link where code will be accessible for review.
Snap2Sale GitHub - Core platform
Snap2Sale AUP GitHub - OpenAI image processing / acceptable use policy validator
Do you agree to submit monthly progress reports?
Yes, although since this is a retroactive grant there should just be a final report I think
Do you agree to designate a point of contact for committee questions and concerns?
Bustedware LLC
[email protected]
bustedware_42595 on discord
Provide links to previous work or code from all team members.
Sia Grafana
SiaFund Earnings
Telegraf MongoDB Output Plugin
Coinbase MindsDB handler
Have you developed a proof of concept for this idea already? If not, you can develop this as part of another grant before submitting this grant.
Yes.
Do you agree to participate in a demo at our monthly community call at significant milestones or after the grant’s completion?
Yes
Contact info
Email:
[email protected]
Any other preferred contact methods:
bustedware_42595 on discord