[Seeking-Feedback] RPC Infra support for IoTeX Halo Grant

Proposal details

Project Name

Pocket Network decentralized RPC Infrastructure support

Project Type

Infrastructure supporting IoTeX apps and ecosystem

Proposal Description

Pocket Network is a decentralized RPC service that enables a permission-less network of independent node operators to be incentivized for running full nodes for blockchains supported by the network. Daaps pay for RPC throughput by staking POKT token, and node operators are compensated in POKT token based on RPC requests served. The beauty of this model is a positive feedback loop that is created: as the usage of the RPC increases, the incentive payout for node runners also increases, thus incentivizing more full nodes to spin up and strengthening the overall RPC service. This model reduces central points of failure within the RPC layer, while increasing geographic distribution, redundancy, and censorship resistance. We currently support over 38 blockchain networks, including many popular EVM protocols. For real-time network data visit: https://www.poktscan.com/. By sponsoring daap’s usage of Pocket RPC within the IoTeX community we are contributing to decentralization, increased resiliency, and censorship resistance of the network.

Pocket expedited support for IoTeX on 23.10.2021 and have been supporting the network as a public good ever since. We have not rate-limited the public IoTeX endpoint and our IoTeX traffic has grown month-by-month. It’s gone from 1.3M relays per month to 277M per month - a 213x gain - signalling the service is of value to the IoTeX community and builders.

Providing this service for free is not sustainable long-term and Pocket Network has reached a stage where we need to activate a paid strategy in order to recover costs we already invested and ensure sustainable operations to be able to continue to support blockchain ecosystems like IoTeX long into the future. Therefore we are seeking support from Foundations to continue to operate high-quality public goods. As opposed to other providers / running your own nodes, investing in Pocket in not a sunk cost but rather just an opportunity cost - POKT must be purchased and staked to utilize the protocol, but this POKT is owned by Foundation and this investment can be recouped (subject to POKT token price fluctuations) on the open market at any time the IoTeX Foundation wishes. If we were unsuccessful in our proposal to secure retroactive funding, we would still want to continue to support the network and therefore in an effort to do so sustainable, we would introduce performance limits that would channel users to our paid tiers in our portal where costs would be passed on to IoTeX builders.

Milestones

Milestone 1: IoTeX Chain Integration

  • Duration (weeks): ALREADY COMPLETE

  • Deliverables (make sure they can be easily verified):

    • PNI to integrate IoTeX to the Pocket Network protocol.
    • PNI to spin up and maintain backup infrastructure for IoTeX on Pocket Network
    • PNI will whitelist a chainID (0044) of IoTeX to Pocket Network Protocol, thus enabling 3rd party node runners on Pocket Network to earn POKT tokens for supporting IoTeX nodes.
    • PNI will integrate IoTeX into the Pocket Portal, allow 3rd party users and developers to mint IoTeX RPC endpoints.
    • PNI will provide a portal account for IoTeX to mint endpoints that can be used for internal usage or as public-exposed endpoints.
    • PNI will integrate IoTeX into Pocket’s dynamic, interactive API docs.
  • Funds request (USD): 100,000 USD
    .

Milestone 2: Relays-Per-Month Throughput

  • Duration (weeks): Started 23.10.2021 and runs through 23.10.2024. ALREADY LIVE

  • Deliverables (make sure they can be easily verified):

  1. PNI to provide a throughput limit of 1.5B relays per month for the next 2 years ensuring that the community still has a lot of room for growth
  2. Pocket to include the endpoint in our developer docs providing easy-access for IoTeX builders
    .
  • Funds request (USD): 50,000 USD.
    NOTE: IoTeX Foundation will receive 50K worth of POKT as part of this request. Should IoTeX no longer wish to use the service, they can request this amount to be unstaked and sent to them to recover the investment

Total funds requested

150,000 USD (of which IoTeX Foundation will receive 50K worth of POKT)

Please checkmark the following if you agree

Although these options are not mandatory, please consider committing to them for the greater benefit of the IoTeX ecosystem.

  • We commit to open source the project: Yes - already done

  • We commit to stake [ AMOUNT ] IOTX on the IoTeX Blockchain: No

  • We commit to donate [ 100% of Milestone 2 Funds ] of [ POKT ] to the IoTeX Foundation: See above. 100% of Milestone 2 Funds will be donated to IoTeX Foundation

About your Team

Team Size: 60 team members

  1. Leadership: 8
  2. Operations / BD: 7
  3. Marketing: 7
  4. Financ e / HR: 6
  5. Governance: 6
  6. Engineering: 31

Social profiles

  1. CEO
  2. CTO
  3. CGO
  4. COO
  5. CIO
  6. CMO

Metrics

See image above

Links

Project links:

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I think it’s a great project, but I thought the POKT network token was supposed to be the value generator itself, not private funding from IoTeX foundation…

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Thanks for submitting the IoTex halo grant application, we are reviewing it

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Hey @Jrynkiew!

Thanks for your comment. I think that’s fair based on our documentation. For clarity, Pocket Network DAO does receive 10% of the token emission from block rewards which is managed by the DAO and Foundation. These value of these emissions were drastically reduced during the bear market but also were never intended to cover all of our fixed and variable costs or provide a main source of income for growth. This was intended to support growth during our bootstrap phase as we experiment with revenue generation and sustainable economic models.

Pocket Network INC is a business built on top of Pocket Network protocol and our income / investment here supports the team of 60+ people that have built the V0 protocol and ecosystem of supporting software as well as work on V1 of the protocol. Here we have significant costs that don’t trend downwards with the bear market.

Also, this request for support from the Foundation is a short term measure that allows us to continue the support for the IoTeX ecosystem for the next 2 years. In any case, I understand not everyone will be supportive of dedicating funds to this proposal but I thank you for the time and feedback nonetheless.

Duckie3351

Hi @Grizzily. Thanks for the confirmation.