Project Summary

The path to FLUQ began with a puzzle from the ancient past. While working on a novel pattern-recognition method to decipher the 4,000-year-old Indus Valley script, I became obsessed with the "unseen architecture" of trust. This obsession followed me into the digital world when I was building UNIQ ID, a zero-knowledge identity system. I realized that the most critical layer of our digital security—randomness—is fundamentally broken. Most systems today rely on "black-box" sources that are either predictable, expensive, or controlled by centralized powers. If the source of "luck" is hidden, fairness is just an illusion. FLUQ is my attempt to build a transparent, decentralized network that turns real-world entropy into a public utility, ensuring that fairness is provable for everyone.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

My goal is to create the "TCP/IP of Randomness"= a foundational layer of the internet that provides unhackable, honest entropy. I am building a decentralized network where independent devices aggregate real-world randomness, mix it cryptographically to remove bias, and publish verifiable outputs. Over the next year, I plan to move the protocol from its current Sepolia testnet MVP to a production-ready Mainnet deployment. I will achieve this by hardening our cryptographic primitives and releasing a "Plug-and-Play" SDK, allowing any developer to integrate provable fairness into their applications with just a few lines of code.

How will this funding be used?

This funding will act as the critical bridge between a working prototype and a global infrastructure. The minimum funding of $5,000 will be used strictly for protocol hardening, maintaining decentralized nodes, and infrastructure costs. Reaching the full $20,000 goal will allow me to scale significantly. These funds will cover professional third-party security audits to ensure the protocol is "battle-hardened," and help establish a legal framework for the project.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

I am a 13-year-old independent researcher and protocol architect. My work is defined by high agency and a neurodivergent perspective that allows me to find "potholes" and patterns that others often miss. I have a proven track record of shipping: I am an Emergent Ventures recipient (awarded $7,000 for my linguistic research) and recently got selected for a $2,500 Atomic Grant from Grad Capital specifically for my engineering work on FLUQ. I have built and open-sourced multiple projects like ZYNQ and UNIQ ID, and I am supported by my father, Madhu N Panicker, who handles legal and compliance matters, alongside a network of senior researchers from my linguistic collaborations.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

Failure would look like FLUQ remaining a "novelty" rather than becoming a standard utility. This could happen if I fall into the "AI Trap": relying too heavily on AI-augmented drafts without sufficient human verification, leading to a subtle logic error in our entropy collection. To prevent this, I am actively seeking a technical co-founder with deep security experience. If the project fails, the outcome will be an open-source "map of mistakes" for the next generation of builders. In the world of cryptography, a failed experiment is still a contribution to the truth, providing the data necessary for the eventual solution to decentralized fairness.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

In the last year, I have successfully raised $9,500 in equity-free grants. This includes a $7,000 grant from Emergent Ventures (Mercatus Center), which validated my research abilities, and a $2,500 Atomic Grant from Grad Capital, which was specifically awarded to support the development of FLUQ. These funds have been managed with extreme capital efficiency to build my prototypes and maintain my current runway.