Iagon as a storage backend for Permanentum

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Kiriakos Krastillis

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

c10-iagon-permanentum@evolute.software

Additional applicants

Navjit Dhaliwal representing IAGON

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

6

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.” .

The solution utilizes Iagon, a novel storage network native to Cardano.

Iagon just launched a storage provider testnet and at the moment of writing, still working on features which a Permanentum Iagon SP would require.

After having talked with Iagon about their timelines all parties are optimistic that all tech dependencies will be addressed for the start of this project (Oct 2023).

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

Project will be fully open source.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Dev Ecosystem Collaboration

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Permanentum is a DeFi protocol that enables users and developers to ensure their IPFS CIDs remain retrievable indefinitely.

But decentralized solutions are only as valuable as their resiliency and decentralization is. Permanentum currently depends on Filecoin for long term storage. In risk terms this would be a Single Point of Failure. By adding Iagon we remove this problem as users and developers will be able to ensure their Storage Bonds remain usable by forcing the Bond to utilize more than one storage backend.

Permanentum is intended to address developers as well as individual holders of IPFS data. By offering a meaningful abstraction for storage that is feature complete and has no edge cases to manually consider, developers won't have to think about the retrievability problem any more. Just talk with the Permanentum smart contract and your retrievability concerns vanish.

Permanentum integrating Iagon also sends the world a very clear message, Cardano is growing and we produce mature solutions that are dependable even for advanced use cases.

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

Currently developers have to manually code most of their retrievability solutions and usually end up using a centralized pinning service.

IPFS is the de facto standard in the web3 world when it comes to storing chunks of data (image, video or other). Permanentum fixes all the problems the usage of IPFS brings with it and gives dApp developers the tools to avoid months of storage work by just integrating Permanentum in a day or two.

We are already seeing interest from various dApps, nmkr and people working on hydra applications. And we haven't really started outreach yet.

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

There are varying things we can measure.

We think a great KPI would be GBs secured by Iagon (How many GBs of the Permanentum Storage Bond data are being backed by Iagon offers).

Overall the success indicators of Permanentum will be led by integrations in dApps. We already are talking with devs about integrations in tools like nmkr studio, paima, etc.

Success itself for Permanentum is measured in GBs secured (the volume of data being covered by storage bonds) and GBs retrieved (how much data would have been lost and was reinstated by pulling from the permanentum backups into IPFS again)

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

Permanentum is completely open source and developed in the open. We publish all our announcements, insights, etc on the permanentum blog.

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

evolute.software has been active in Cardano since 2020 with a variety of projects. We have a history of delivering software. Kiriakos Krastillis has over two decades of professional IT experience, either as a developer or as a manager. evolute.software is well networked in the software development and it security domains. We casually bring on domain experts to add extra depth on advanced topics but on our own we also are formidable pen testers and devs.

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

We validated the aproach for the Iagon storage backend with Iagon senior staff already.

The main goals are:

1. Develop the Permanentum Storage Backend that utilizes Iagon
2. Community outreach in the Iagon and SPO community to identify parties interested in running Iagon nodes and Permanentum.
3. Upgrade the permanentum smart contract to accept offers on Bonds from the new backend
4. Set up Documentation for storage providers
5. Run a testnet with Iagon backends
6. Finalize documentation
7. Upgrade mainnet to enable Iagon next to Filecoin backends

[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.

1. Develop the Iagon backed Storage Provider for Permanentum
2. Community outreach to Iagon Storage providers and Potential ones
3. Storage Provider Documentation
4. Integrate in the user documentation
5. Update the contract to support Iagon Storage provider offers for Storage Bonds
6. Run an incentivized testnet with select Iagon storage providers

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

M1: The software that operators of Iagon nodes will can use to participate in the Permanentum protocol

M2: A list of interested parties to run the incentivized testnet and make the Iagon community aware of the project

M3 + M4: gitbook like documentation. Enough so that an educated admin can run a Permanentum node backed by Iagon

M5: A new, open source, plutus, smart contract and a migration of the Permanentum main and testnets to it.

M6: Testnet, hopefully without too many bug discoveries.

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

Milestones

• Development   20
• Community outreach to Iagon Storage providers and Potential ones   5
• Storage Provider Documentation   2
• Integrate in the user documentation   2
• Update the contract to support Iagon Storage provider offers for Storage Bonds   10
• Iagon Senior Developer Consultation and Support   4000 Usd
• Run an incentivized testnet with select Iagon storage providers   12
• Testnet incentives (10k Ada)   

Totals:

evolute.software developer 95€/hour * 432h = 41,040.00€

Iagon senior dev support: 4,000.00€

Testnet incentives: 10,000.00₳

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

Expanding Permanentum to include Iagon is not cheap. Partly because of the high German Developer rates, partly because we want to execute well and not be driven by shoestring budgets. Of course running an incentivised testnet is also a cost driver.

We think this is worth it. Not only are we removing a significant single point of failure, we also strengthen our community. Permanentum wants to be an opensource, decentralized piece of infrastructure that other dApp developers can easily use, what better argument than demonstrating that Permanentum too in turn uses innovative Cardano projects (Iagon) to do its job. Developers see further when they stand on the shoulders of giants, let's become giants by building on each other!

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept