F8: Cardano scaling solutions
Campaign Brief
For Cardano to become a global leader as a smart contract blockchain it will need to scale to meet the requirements of handling hundreds of millions of users.
Current scaling situation
Hydra is the leading project being executed by IOG to help Cardano scale the blockchain.
The first phase of Hydra will be available in 2022 however this initial implementation will not resolve all of the problems needed for Cardano to scale.
Sebastien from dcSpark recently discussed the importance of rollups and alternative solutions in an interview
Need for more scaling options
To reach true decentralization the Cardano community will need to not rely on the input from IOG as much as it does now as we move into the future.
Hydra will only have it's initial implementation released early next year. Cardano faces potential scaling problems in 2022 as high demand protocols in DeFi, NFTs and gaming begin and continue being released. With alternative scaling solutions not in place there is a risk of overloading demand on the main chain.
Types of proposals encouraged
Proposers should consider new novel ideas or research, extensions of Hydra functionality or porting over solutions used in other blockchains that would be suitable for Cardano.
Proposers are welcome to focus on market specific scalability solutions - for instance a solution could focus on DeFi specifically with decentralized exchanges (DEX's) as a focus area or other growing markets that could benefit from novel scaling solutions.
Scalability topic areas:
Rollups (e.g. zero knowledge rollups, optimistic rollups)
Sharding
Sidechains
State channels
Size of proposals
Scaling solutions are inherently complex and require significant engineering effort. As a result proposers should not be discouraged from making proposals that request most of the challenge budget. A single proposal team is both welcome and encouraged to request the entire budget if they can demonstrate an articulated plan with the technical expertise to address the challenge of scaling solutions that are suitable for growing Cardano.
Budget rationale
High technical expertise is needed for scalability solutions. Projects will likely take many months of engineering effort to implement viable solutions.
Follow on funding rounds
If this this challenge setting gets voted in and the proposal(s) submitted show signs they can be impactful then a follow on challenge will be submitted for fund 9 with a larger requested budget to further help the team(s) be able to request further funding.
Why is it important?
Hydra will not solve every scaling problem in Cardano, more scaling solutions are needed as alternatives
What does success look like?
Scaling solutions that are introduced and implemented by the community that Cardano projects can start using
Key Metrics to measure
- Number of scaling solutions available to the community to use within their projects
- Number of projects launched on any of the new scaling solutions
- Novel ideas generated from research on different scaling approaches
using games to scale audience
Solution: The plan is to build a fun high quality game with the perks of gamefi on the blockchain to help scale with gamer audiences.
Simplify SPO rollups in Vietnam
Solution: Simplify setup and SPO guides so that non-tech people can perform rollups. Provide pre-setup solar power stake pools appliances to market.
Research Guild: Scalability Report
Solution: The Research Guild will deliver a Scalability Report that scopes scaling solutions across blockchains to inform future Catalyst proposals.
Perun Channels for Cardano
Solution: We implement Perun Channels for Cardano and thereby enable P2P transactions at unlimited scalability and with cross-chain potential.
Orbis: Layer 2 ZK Rollup
Solution: Orbis is a ZK(zero-knowledge) rollup layer 2 protocol for Cardano. Moving computation off-chain scales Cardano's throughput significantly.
Layer 3 scalability using zkRollups
Solution: Research and clear blueprint on how to implement zk-rollups on top of Milkomeda as a L3 as well as a roadmap for wallet implementation
KONMA Chain : L2 ZK Roll up for ADA
Solution: Konma proposes a layer 2 solution that will act as a support layer to Cardano and other projects, it will also host Konmas web3 projects.
Erdstall: instant TXs, L2 NFT mints
Solution: Extend our L2 Erdstall from Ethereum to Cardano: low-fee, high-throughput, instant transactions and NFT mints, DEX intrinsics, and SDK.
DEFI SHOULD BE MORE FUN ON SCALING
Solution: Instead of following the boring UX design like most of the current DEXs, Miverse will give a distinct model to DeFi & GameFi ecosystem.
Decentralized REDIS state channels
Solution: Apply REDIS, a best-in-class in-memory database, to create a decentralized state-channel service for dApp developers.
DAO-NET & A2T Sidechain Design
Solution: Design a sidechain solution optimized for handling the DAO-NET & A2T suites projected transaction volumes in a cost effective manner.
BeerHouse.io
Solution: The portfolio Manager and Tracker on Cardano Ecossystem Save time and convenience using an intelligent monitoring and analysis system safety
A Scalable Service For NFT Utility
Solution: Create a state machine and API service that integrates B2B ecommerce solutions into NFT project websites without coding skills.
A region-based sharded network
Solution: The Internet with regional ASs is introduced into the blockchain network with the region-based shards, which enables ‘parallel writes.’
Ada's Place - A Medium Publication
Solution: Ada's Place, a Cardano Publication promoted on Medium.com to reveal all happenings submitted by the community.
ADA Scam Alert - Info & Protection
Solution: Platform to classify, analyze and rank projects according to risk management, fraud, security and reliability in project verification.