Charli3 Oracles - FREE accessible data feeds, and DAO implementation

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Context:

We want to;

create a DAO mechanism for choosing our next free community focused data feeds,
as well as expand our community data feeds treasury to subsidize FREE secure oracle data feeds

This is for the benefit of the community and upcoming Cardano projects, supporting the growth and security of the Cardano ecosystem.

Since our last funded proposals, much has changed in the ecosystem, with many new projects launching soon in need of data feeds. With more funds, we intend to;

launch 3+ new subsidized community feeds
keep current feeds running for longer
create the DAO with Clarity for community voting

With our current estimates, the plan is to raise 390k ADA+ for an entire year of community data feeds, and DAO management, using Fund 10

Solution Overview:

S2 TL;DR What is this proposal?

This proposal is NOT funding to build an Oracle.

This proposal is NOT to provide funding to Charli3 to build their product or expand their company.

The funding pays for Oracle feeds, NOT Charli3 development.

TL;DR Vote "yes" = 390K ADA goes into a public, fully transparent, community controlled fund.

All funding goes towards providing price feeds for the community. Charli3 will act on behalf of the community to use that community fund to pay for operational costs related exclusively to data feeds and the DAO used by the community.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

There is currently a lack of security in Cardano defi, as many projects are using centralized data feeds.

What we have found is this lack of oracle integration is most often related to the costs of oracle services, which is hard to manage in this current bear market as well as for new startups. This seeming lack of product quality and security in cardano based projects gives a view of the ecosystem to be immature and not ready for heavy volume and liquidity. Without trust, quality, and security in defi for large liquidity, the ecosystem will not grow to it's potential.

These data feeds will eliminate the costs of the most needed data in the ecosystem and allow projects the grow faster by reducing costs for others, aligning to a standard of security and increasing operational stability, and quality of the defi, realfi, gaming (and other) ecosystems on Cardano, as well as signal to outside investors that Cardano defi has matured and ready for more action.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

1-3 months

set up the DAO and initiate parameters around the voting structure.
Launch data feeds chosen by the community
Begin assisting projects in integrating these feeds.
capture 100+ DAO members for operational voting

3-6 months

Capture 200+ DAO members for operational voting
Sustain accurate and reliable feeds with minimal downtime to the community
continue onboarding projects with the community feeds

6-12 months:

Expand our fund and add more feeds through community voting
Continue growth of DAO and depth of active participants

12+ months:

Be in a position to extend the offering for another 12-24 months for all current running feeds. We will strive as a company to keep the community price feeds alive for as long as possible. Success is a long term community service that is constantly expanding in quality and quantity of feeds.

Announcements:

Every new integration will be announced in force, to continue to grow the standard of security needed in Cardano

Tracking:

Our future developer portal will be tracking all the details around the operations of these feeds. The deviation updates, aggregation frequency, nodes in use, and a historical record of all aggregations posted on chain, as well as references of the data feeds on chain. This data will allow us to measure the impact of savings of community-built projects.

DAO:

Employing this DAO mechanism through Clarity will also show the viability of the operation and increasing community involvement and education in Cardano ecosystem security.

tracking active registered DAO users and their active involvement will also be a priority to continue as much decentralized operation as possible.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Charli3's capability with producing these feeds is very high, as we do it every day. Charli3 has been running a FREE community-based ADA/USD feed since October 14th, 2022, along the funding of past Catalyst wins. The Oracle is already in constant functionality, so producing new feeds voted on by the community is quite simple and a regular process for us and our current customers.

Current data feeds running

ADA/USD <https://cexplorer.io/address/addr1wyd8cezjr0gcf8nfxuc9trd4hs7ec520jmkwkqzywx6l5jg0al0ya/tx#data>
SHEN/USD <https://cexplorer.io/address/addr1w958muzatpmyclvce9szsu0pya42tupgh954x605papssegtpnpu3/tx#data>
MEHEN proof of reserve (<https://preprod.cardanoscan.io/transaction/99a9b316d22a75016a2ad9130670c62f3c6022468eee83dfedb3885e726981a6?tab=referenceinputs>)

as stated above, we employ our network with a focus on these key pillars

a. accuracy (e.g. reported inaccuracies over a period of time),

b. reliability (e.g. uptime),

c. robustness (e.g. availability of nodes to meet the security standard of a feed), and

d. security (e.g. maintaining zero breaches).

e. multi data points (e.g. extra data redundancy for security)

the newly created DAO will be through Clarity, a trusted and functional DAO building platform with a track record of efficiency and security. (<https://clarity.community/>)

Integrations:

For this specific proposal, our most important KPI is the volume of projects successfully using our public feeds, as well as the ease of their integrations. We can track the number of times our feeds are used, and who is using them.

Our team is currently in discussion with 35+ projects on Cardano that need data feeds, and more talk to us every week about the future of their development and operations

One such project is METERA protocol, who has want to create a full portfolio and index of Charli3-related community feeds, allowing even further access to Cardano Native Assets in a far more secure and open way for current and outside users to the ecosystem, while also lowering their own operational costs.

to name some other communities that would benefit from these free data feeds:

MELD

Cornucopias

Indigo Protocol

Foreon Network

VyFinance

TVVIN

ADAO

Summon

Liqwid

and many more……

These communities equal to hundreds of thousands of users benefitting from these feeds, and spreading the word of Cardano defi security to other corners.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The main goals of this proposal are to have more projects integrating decentralized data feeds.

The approach is quite feasible as most projects currently operating and building need these data feeds to uphold the Cardano values of decentralization. implementing the DAO to choose these feeds also serves the same purpose of taking another step toward community governance of Cardano operations.

Ideal quantitative results would be 2 new integrations per month.

This would show the qualitative results of the community conscious caring more about security of data on chain and support for decentralization.

over the year we hope for a minimum of 24+ projects utilizing these free data feeds for their platforms and communities.

Types of sectors that benefit;

defi
gaming
realfi

-- and all sub-categories that fall within the main ones

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

The major milestones will stay in line with the proposals focus, DAO, Data Feeds, and Maintenance.

All of this should be able to get implemented prior to the initial funding delivery, and the funding will then go towards reimbursement as well as continuance of the DAO mechanism as well as the data feed uptimes

Create DAO with Clarity protocol
implement a voting structure for the community
propose parameters for community feeds
Implementing Community voted data feeds
Some of these feeds may already be running
implementing any new data sources needed

Timeline for this implementation. Each new data feed takes about 1 week to set up properly. the DAO mechanism may take about 1 month according to the Clarity team

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Repeat of previous answer further above ^^^^

1-3 months

set up the DAO and initiate parameters around the voting structure.
Launch data feeds chosen by the community
Begin assisting projects in integrating these feeds.
capture 100+ DAO members for operational voting

3-6 months

Capture 200+ DAO members for operational voting
Sustain accurate and reliable feeds with minimal downtime to the community
continue onboarding projects with the community feeds

6-12 months:

Expand our fund and add more feeds through community voting
Continue growth of DAO and depth of active participants
have 24+ projects using the community data feeds

12+ months:

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

The current infrastructure is already in place. However, there are a myriad of continued costs to consider.

feed setup
feed paramter maintenance
dao continuance
node rewards
aggregation cost
network cost & changes
Marketing needs for DAO and community feeds

etc etc……

factoring all these in, our estimated amount is 100k ADA per feed, per year. and 90k ADA for marketing efforts and DAO maintenance with Clarity

using our current records of running feeds, including the 2% deviation checks, each feed will cost an average of 60k ADA per year just to run. With dev time added, we make up the other 40k ADA per feed for research, implementation, aggregation assistance, and feed maintenance.
90k ADA marketing breakdown split into paid articles to promote the DAO, video tutorials for ease of use, educational documents for DAO governance properties, and payment to Clarity for use of their DAO platform

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

The core Charli3 team is headed by Robert Hever and Damon Zwarich, who are co-founders of Charli3 and have built it up over the past 2 years into a fully functioning oracle operation. Heading up the development team is Deep Bhat, our senior dev, who has been with us since the start, mainly developing the node operation software and setting up the feeds. Also our junior haskell/plutus dev for all on-chain functionality, Jose Seraquive.

Mlabs and Metalamp are two dev shops that already work with us and will assist in all operations towards this proposal. Both have a strong standing reputation in Cardano.

Clarity is supporting the DAO infrastructure and operations.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

Overall this project aims to serve the Cardano community on multiple levels. This saves projects in the Cardano ecosystem hundreds of thousands of dollars in oracle operations fees, lowers the ecosystem risk to centralized data operations, and allows more projects to come online faster with more security.

The DAO mechanism to community vote to manage the creation and existence of these feeds also plays into an overarching community intelligence of the most beneficial data for the ecosystem projects building, aiding to the decentralized goals of Cardano.

bookmarked!