[RFC] - Developer DAO RPC Gateway

[kempsterrrr]

gm friends

There are a lot of unanswered questions in this RFC. Its purpose at this stage is to relay and seek feedback on an opportunity that has become available to the DAO to see if the idea has support and discuss how we might approach it if it does.

Topics not covered included: architecture, team, costs

What is the Developer DAO RPC Gateway?

The idea is for the DAO to build an RPC Gateway in the POKT Network ecosystem to give cheap access to high-quality RPC endpoints, give members an opportunity to build something for the DAO and help sustain the DAO with a consistent revenue stream.

Imagine your app/wallet was powered by chain.rpc.developerdao.com

Why build an RPC Gateway for Developer DAO?

Our preferred RPC Partner POKT Network has made it possible for teams to deploy their own RPC gateways on-top of resilient and high-performance decentralised infrastructure at a fraction of the set-up (and running cost) compared to centralised alternatives on a pay-per-use model. This unlocks a realistic opportunity to create an RPC product to compete using the DAO’s strengths: Brand and Distribution.

Some of the benefits of creating a Developer DAO RPC Gateway that are aligned with our mission, values and goals:

• Dog Food and support POKTs efforts to decentralise core blockchain infrastructure
• Provide members the opportunity to work on a commercial open source project to help develop their skills and earn returns if successful.
• Build a meaningful project in the DAO that both showcases what we can do and helps to fund the DAO’s long-term sustainability.

POKT Network removes the vast majority of the upfront costs associated with building and running RPC Node infrastructure, leaving the remaining primary costs as the service layer (SaaS UI/Account management etc.), customer acquisition and support.

This unlocks a far more achievable path towards profitability, particularly given we have an existing brand and distribution to the products target audience.

How do we create a Developer DAO RPC Gateway?

There are 3 ways we could approach this highlight in the table below in order of complexity and overhead - easiest/cheapest to hardest/most expensive.

Option	Description
Build on top of an existing Gateway	Build a SaaS application on top of Grove and or Nodies Gateway that manages user accounts, authentication & API keys, payments, but refers all traffic to their gateways.
Build our own sovereign gateway using GatewayKit	Everything above plus build and manage our own RPC Gateway using the OS GatewayKit being developed by Nodies and POKT
Build our own sovereign Gateway from scratch.	Build everything from scratch.

Potential Business models

Model
Flat monthly fee for all users
Flat monthly fee for non-members, discounted accounts for members
Flat monthly fee for non-members, free accounts for members rolled into the idea of a DAO NFT Membership (this would only work in a world where membership were recurring to cover the on-going costs of providing the RPC)

*This assumes we don’t follow the high-cost growth model of centralised RPCs and charge for all accounts from the get go as we don’t currently have the capital to fund such a model

Potential Funding Routes

Funding
Revenue split for contributors on project	% split of revenue generated from sales
Grant funding	POKT Quick Grants POKT RPF/POP - Gateway Demo Other grant programs (we may be able to persuade some foundations to issue small grants to support the work, maybe in return for discounts for their token holders for example)
Retroactive public goods funding	POKT Network RPGF Optimism RPGF
Combination of the above	Combination of these approaches

As well as general feedback on the idea and options presented, it would be great to hear from the community on how we might approach such a project. One interesting option could be opening up an RFP process for members to pitch to create it with a vote.

Thanks to @mannyornothing for helping me put this together & @Billyjitsu for participating in discussions with POKT, Grove and Nodies.

Tagging @Crypdough.eth as he asked to be kept in the loop

[mannyornothing]

How do we evaluate the feasibility of the RPC Gateway project, given our current resources and skill sets? I’m keen to understand how we can realistically assess our capabilities against the project’s demands. Additionally, I’d like to delve deeper into the potential business models for this venture. Considering options like flat monthly fees for all, special rates for members, or integrating free access as part of a DAO NFT Membership, which model aligns best with our values and financial sustainability? How do you see these models impacting the long-term sustainability of our DAO and the engagement of our members?

[kempsterrrr]

Great questions.

@kempsterrrr

There are a lot of unanswered questions in this RFC. Its purpose at this stage is to relay and seek feedback on an opportunity that has become available to the DAO to see if the idea has support and discuss how we might approach it if it does.

Topics not covered included: architecture, team, costs

I don’t have the time to drive this at the moment and I don’t want to gatekeep the opportunity that was presented to us. If there is interest in on this RFP, hopefully we can start answering some of those questions together. If there isn’t that’s OK too

Initial thoughts on what we’d need to delve deep into this idea:

1. Overview of architecture for each/chosen solution
2. Infrastructure and tooling costs associated with 1
3. Min-team required to create and maintain it (and how they’re rewarded for the work)

Some under informed observations - upfront contributor costs aside, the hosting costs of running this service are probably quite low (vercel currently free for main app, nginx/KV Store based API Gateway/Proxy on a simple server, most auth providers have free tier for 1st 1000 users). Some tricky problems would be: need a new entity for payment gateways, how do we handle support?

[Adz]

We would love to see a Developer DAO RPC Gateway.

If someone has the interest / bandwidth to spearhead it, you would have my full support from within the POKT Network Foundation.

Narrative + Economics

D_D could provide core infrastructure to Web3 in a fully decentralized manner: our decentralized infra in the back-end + your decentralized front-end. Censorship resistant RPC services.

And the economics work. POKT Network charges protocol fees of just $0.80 / mil - vs min $4 / mil. So you could deliver RPC with a price advantage as well as a structural advantage.

Right now some chains outsource their official public RPC to centralized companies. I’d love to see those going through a D_D Gateway.

Use of Talent

Not only do you have the brand and distribution to make this successful, you have the people.

This could be a great way to showcase your skills to Web3, deliver tangible value to the ecosystem, and generate sustainable income for the members that work on it and for the DAO itself.

Easy Experiment

You could test the idea without upfront cost (via GaaS) and only deploy your own sovereign Gateway once you’re comfortable that the economics are sufficient to cover salaries to maintain it, while still delivering monthly profit back to the DAO.

TL;DR

Would love to see this happen. HMU if you have any questions I can help with. And huge thanks to @kempsterrrr, @mannyornothing and Billy Jitsu (couldn’t tag you because I have a max of 2 tags as a new user in the forum ) for taking the time to explore the idea.

[kempsterrrr]

Welcome to the forum @Adz

Thanks for sharing your perspective on this. Schedule a call our discord at 5pm UTC (~45 mins from now) if you’re available do drop by!

[kempsterrrr]

Sharing some out comes of 2 calls yesterday about this topic:

Chat with @Adz and members in Discord

Hosted a call in the DAO yesterday to talk about this idea, from the DAO @PSkinnerTech @saugardev @Crypdough.eth @markkos89.eth @0xThresh joined (sorry if missing anyone) and @Adz joined from POKT Network.

We spoke about the pro’s and cons for the options to creating a gateway above, and also the funding opportunities including the now closed RFP / POP from Poket Network.

We were considering applying fro the POP but on balance in the end felt it would have been rushed and rather better to put more time into the idea figuring what to build, how to build it and who could build it. Considering submitting a Socket with POKT to secure funding for someone to lead this idea - would need to provide benefits to the POKT ecosystem beyond us just creating a DD gateway - @PSkinnerTech as an existing recipient of a POKT Socket and @Adz as a member of the team may be able to shed more light on this. It being open source would be expected. What else could we do to give value back to pocket for receiving a grant?

@mannyornothing @Billyjitsu and I also chatted with @dabit3 about his potential involvement in the project and he is up for supporting in the scoping of the project and helping us with messaging/distribution.

Some conversations have start on how we might build this:

• Excallidraw
• Google Doc

TLDR on how is focus on most simple MVP first, ship that top test the market and iterate.

Optimistic goal to push a very high-level rough drat for “How” this week for review and input from those interested and then start work on the project as a community. Project needs someone to lead it and funding/rewards would need to be worked out. I suggested if we can secure a Socket grant from POKT that maybe this goes to someone who is interested in leading the project and then those who contributed to the project are rewarded retrospectively from revenue/profit.

Add as am item for today’s Coordination call