Please describe your proposed solution.
Koios is a decentralized Query Protocol for indexing and caching data from Cardano blockchains and storage networks. The query interface, the topology of the network, and the economic incentives and mechanisms are designed to keep the network running as a public utility.
Koios qualifies as a flexible launchpad for builders removing the overhead costs of setting up, running and maintaining Cardano/Koios components, as well as offering API endpoints for both simple and complex data through open-source standardized queries besides integrating off-chain data to further help developers and content creators.
Koios extension key features are:
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Koios light node microservice
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Fast and easy microservice setup and deploy
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It will contribute as additional backends for the Koios Full node network topology (aka gRest query layer)
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It will be less resource-hungry allowing better scaling and entry to participate as an instance provider
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Koios side-chain for Cardano
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It will run a separate chain following Cardano’s consensus
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Cardano and Koios networks
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incentivizing Koios contributors and building self-sustainable Koios infrastructure
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Chain Analysis Dapp will feature data aggregation and representation (also throughout API integration) of:
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Chain History
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Block propagation
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Relay distribution
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Topology
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Wallets
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Native tokens
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TXs over time
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Fees paid by TXs
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TVL per token
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And more…
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
With this proposal, we will address 3 different problems with 3 different microservices that synergically will provide support to Koios as well as to the Cardano ecosystem.
We choose to group those 3 problems in one proposal due to the deployment solution we envisioned to better orchestrate and push adoption of the Koios project.
1st Problem:
The current minimum requirements for running cardano-db-sync and cardano-node as part of a Koios instance constitute a barrier for inexperienced users that nevertheless would like to be part of the Koios ecosystem. Moreover, as Cardano grows, these requirements will only increase leading to more expensive and complicated solutions.
1st Solution: A lightweight Koios API instance microservice-type that excludes the cardano-node/dbsync components.
These lightweight instances will be created to complement the existing full-node Instances and be integrated automatically into the Koios network topology. These have significantly lower system resource requirements, which makes it easier for potential operators to install and run them on their infrastructure. This is especially true with regard to the ever-growing system requirements.
The light node provides certain query results directly and only fetches special results from the full nodes. This achieves a more efficient load balancing and significantly better and cost-efficient scalability.
2nd Problem:
At the moment, there is no reward program for participants who improve the elasticity of Koios API or help expand its services and adoption.
Every current Koios node has been set up by farsighted community members that believe in the future of Koios and developers who understand the future of query layers cannot rely on single-dimensional infrastructure and want to contribute to a professional query layer to start building and deploying their Dapps by running nodes at their own economical expenses.
2nd Solution: A Koios side-chain to reward additional nodes.
In order to achieve a wider and faster decentralization along with redundant Koios services, it is necessary to plan and implement a motivation and reward program in a way that efforts and contributions will be incentivized. For this purpose, Cardano technology is used to develop a side-chain and a reward system that provides the contributing operators with fair and reliable returns.
The Koios elastic infrastructure will become fully decentralized also for aspects like governance besides incentivizing the deployment of microservices instances throughout L1 rewards.
Moreover, the bridging to the Cardano network will open new possibilities to the whole ecosystem without adding burden to the congestion of the Cardano Network itself by handling metrics for incentives on a separate network. Nevertheless, any Koios asset will be transferable to Cardano when needed transparently.
3rd Problem:
At the moment, Cardano chain analysis tools in the ecosystem are dispersed through several websites, often providing limited tools, in a centralized way - while the data used either depends on what’s on-chain (which already loses a lot of data that occurs beforehand) or maintaining proprietary data not available for re-utilization.
As such, this makes it impossible to re-use such queries for Dapps that may want to build chain intelligence tools that look at things like block/transaction propagation, network peering, rollbacks, etc…
3rd Solution: A first Dapp featuring Cardano’s on/off-chain analysis.
By using the already consolidated Koios API (on-chain data normalized) alongside an off-chain data collector (which will also expose a new set of API) we will be able to provide in a decentralized way both an expansion of our API besides a visualization tool covering many of our on/off-chain metrics to help developers as well as researchers in accessing easily those data without risking any downtime risks typical of centralized services.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
At the moment we don't foresee any blocking risk to the development of this proposal.
The only variable we have and may impact our development, as well as our delivery estimation, is related to breaking changes occurring on the development of both cardano-node and dbsync by IOG, which will consequentially be required from our side to adjust our code accordingly.
To mitigate this risk as much as possible, we monitor on a daily basis all IOG progresses and commits and keep in touch with IOG's developers directly to assist them and ask for assistance on the future changes coming.
Our team has always been committed since Cardano's early days to testing and cooperating with Cardano's core developers therefore our relationship with them has been growing over the years.