MLabs – CardaNow – Rapid Infrastructure Caching

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

Additional applicants

Ben Hart

Neil Rutledge

Andrea Ciceri

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

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

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

[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.” .

Minimal, we rely on existing open source tools which are already functionally complete.

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

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

We commit to open source the subset of the project necessary for creating the snapshot and optimized indexes themselves. The snapshots, indexes, and devops infrastructure that goes with them will be made publicly available for convenience via a closed-source API.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

CardaNow aims to revolutionize the Cardano development experience. With a strong emphasis on addressing the limitations of similar Cardano projects, it will provide a simple production-ready service that should be easy to integrate for projects using existing toolchains. Drawing inspiration from Ethereum's Infura and Alchemy, our project focuses on simplifying infrastructure and hosting for developers while remaining focused on quality execution. It will vastly improve the developer experience and generate an impressive ROI for the ecosystem.

Just as Infura leverages the open-source Truffle suite of tools, CardaNow will leverage a combination of tools used by production dApps today (Kupo and services which utilize a matching API, Blockfrost) a comprehensive set of open-source tools to streamline interaction with the Cardano blockchain.

Problem

Currently, Cardano-node and related tools can be resource-intensive relative to use on a typical software development laptop (16GB RAM). Additionally, the node and various indexing services can be slow to sync (this process can require a week or more in extreme cases). Optimized indexers are required for fairly common use-cases in dApp development.

Additionally, cases where a single script address may accumulate a very large number of UTXOs, or where a service may need to check multiple times to verify if a transaction has been accepted into a block can be suboptimal with many existing tools. We seek to remedy this problem while maintaining existing interfaces where possible and providing a more production-ready experience for developers across all official Cardano Networks (e.g., Mainnet, Pre-prod, and Preview Testnets).

For instance, according to the Emurgo Academy, students struggle at length with basic node configuration. A key aspect of our CardaNow value proposition is facilitating Cardano project development and deployment. We aim to minimize architecture complexity and reduce DevOps and time expenditure.

Solution

To overcome these limitations and unlock the true potential of Cardano's smart contract development, CardaNow introduces performant query layers. These query layers have been thoughtfully designed to sidestep proprietary logic. Caching Chain history for the node itself as well as related indexing services will allow a developer to quickly get up to speed and start posting transactions

CardaNow will offer developers several points of improvement:

    • Seamless Development

    • Effortless Testing & Continuous

    • Integration

    • Reliable Production Hosting

A key aspect of our CardaNow value proposition is facilitating Cardano project development and deployment. We aim to minimize architecture complexity and reduce DevOps and time expenditure. Developer education is also crucial.

CardaNow has three general value propositions:

• Speed – Accessing data directly from the blockchain can be slow and resource-intensive, CardaNow will make data access faster improving developer and user experiences.
• Scalability – As on-chain data increases, it becomes costly to retrieve and process. CardaNow will handle large amounts of data without affecting dApp or chain performance.
• Efficiency – CardaNow will enable developers to execute real-time data analytics and process large amounts of data without the need to interact directly with the chain.

More importantly, builders will benefit from:

• Ease of Use – Builders will no longer be required to set up their own infrastructure or query layer, which requires significant technical expertise and resources.
• Reduced Development Time – CardaNow will allow developers to focus on their application logic reducing development times.
• Cost-Effectiveness – The cost of retrieving chain data from the blockchain can be significant. CardaNow sidesteps this issue.
• Reliability – CardaNow will be highly available and robust ensuring applications run smoothly.
• Flexibility and Customization – CardaNow will offer advanced and customized features to be added to a developer's toolkit.

Market

Cardano dApp developers (especially DeFi applications), blockchain startups building on Cardano, existing businesses integrating Cardano into their tech stack, Cardano stake pool operators and delegators.

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

Intended Challenge – Fund10: Products & Integrations

Challenge Question – "What products and integrations can be developed or improved that will offer more use cases to the Cardano ecosystem that are high impact and drive more adoption?"

What does this proposal entail?

CardaNow has a comprehensive long-term scope. Nevertheless, this proposal focuses on implementing fundamental features towards a portion of our MVP. Essentially, we aim to create a basic service offering optimized indexes and cached chain history ready to be imported into a Cardano Node, Kupo, and/or blockfrost instance

The primary obstacle developers currently face is the technical complexity associated with setting up and maintaining Cardano nodes and interacting directly with the blockchain. This creates a steep learning curve and demands significant time investment, discouraging many from building on Cardano.

CardaNow aims to solve this by introducing performant query layers that eliminate the need for proprietary logic and provide easy self-hosting. This removes a lot of the grunt work developers have to do, allowing them to focus on developing their dApps and/or offchain data services. We aim to provide a prepaid environment with a synced node and chain query capabilities for the mainnet and all major testnets along with a caching system that will ensure timely updates. Furthermore, we aim to offer production-grade support and frequent caching, about every other epoch, and will likely initially rely on Kupo for this. Further development of CardaNow will build upon this basic offering.

What is CardaNow’s advantage?

CardaNow will be the most robust and service-complete among similar products while being fully capable of supporting production-ready applications (e.g., far surpassing toy use cases). Backed by MLabs' impressive track record and client portfolio, users can expect several key benefits:

• Easy to adopt– CardaNow seeks to support existing dApp frameworks being used in production today, including Lucid and CTL.
• Strong adoption by top companies and top-tier support – MLabs has already integrated similar solutions into dApps currently live on Cardano. We are familiar with builders' needs and will provide full support while also providing educational resources.
• Streamlined Cardano development experience – With our robust and frequent caching system and ease of integration, we will greatly simplify development so engineers can focus on building innovative solutions instead of dealing with infrastructure hassles.
• Comprehensive suite of developer tools and resources – CardaNow brings together a wide array of development tools and resources as well as portable infrastructure offering a one-stop-shop app deployment.
• Unparalleled industry experience from MLabs – Backed by MLabs, which has a track record of several successful projects in the Cardano ecosystem, we bring a wealth of expertise to ensure that CardaNow delivers on its promises.

Proof of concept: which applications already rely on similar production-grade services provided by MLabs?

The demand for efficient application processing and throughput has been consistent throughout our client work beginning in the Alonzo era. Indeed, this was largely the inspiration for the CardaNow services. Leading up to this proposal several clients have relied on similar services orchestrated by MLabs to provide the web3 experiences their users expect. Including:

• Liqwid
• Indigo
• Optim
• SingularityNet
• Clarity

And several others. With this variety of early applications, we feel confident that CardaNow offers unique services required for production-ready applications on Cardano.

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

As a largely client-focused service, CardaNow's success metrics are arguably straightforward - the main indication of success being the overall satisfaction and reliance on our service by users. More specifically, we identify several quantitative and qualitative measures.

Quantitative measures

• User Adoption Metrics – We will measure the number of unique users and projects relying on our services monthly.
• Platform Performance Metrics – We will regularly assess the response times and service uptime.
• Customer Satisfaction – We will run periodic customer satisfaction surveys to collect feedback for further platform improvements.
• Volume of data processed – We will measure the increase in data processed over time as an indicator of increased user reliance.

Qualitative measures

• Client Feedback – We will actively solicit user and community feedback through various channels.
• Quality of Support – We will actively track the progression and satisfaction level of customer support tickets.
• Community Engagement – We will track the level and quality of engagement in Twitter spaces, discussions, events, etc. surrounding CardaNow.

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

As mentioned, we are still determining the extent of open-sourcing the CardaNow project. That said, open-source code will be relatively limited. Still, we have concrete plans to share the results of our project:

• Performance Reporting – We plan to regularly publish performance metrics, uptime statistics, and other meaningful indicators of service reliability and efficiency.
• Open Source CI Components – Possibly, we will open-source certain components of our CI pipeline, which would provide other Cardano developers with valuable resources.
• Public Tutorials and Demos – We will prepare effective and easy-to-follow tutorials, demos, and educational materials typical of similar services. These materials will help developers properly leverage our platform.
• Community Engagement – We will provide regular progress updates via public Catalyst compliance channels as well as social channels including Twitter, etc.
• Developer Surveys – We will conduct and publish regular surveys to better understand the needs of the community.

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

MLabs, a leading consultancy in the Cardano ecosystem, has a proven track record and significant experience. Our team is composed of seasoned engineers, each holding expertise in their respective fields. Moreover, we have consistently demonstrated our ability to deliver complicated projects with a high degree of trust and accountability. We have an extensive portfolio of satisfied client projects as well as several popular Catalyst projects. We're committed to upholding these standards for CardaNow.

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

The main goals for CardaNow involve improving developers' experience when building on the Cardano blockchain by providing efficient, reliable access to Cardano infrastructure. We also aim to streamline the complexity and time associated with developing and deploying Cardano applications.

We intend to validate our approach's feasibility by launching a minimally viable product and continuously improving it based on user feedback and performance data. We'll also assess our success against the quantitative and qualitative measures detailed above.

[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 development of CardaNow will take place over 11 months, with the following timeline:

Months 1-3: Setup, Initial development of caching services

    • Setting up the project infrastructure.

    • Develop the initial caching services for Cardano Portable Infrastructure.

    • Testing and bug fixing.

Months 4-5: Advanced Feature Development

    • Development of advanced features, such as an API for data retrieval.

    • Integration with existing Cardano dApps for testing.

    • Gathering user feedback and making necessary improvements.

    • Full documentation and tutorial creation for user

    • Open sourcing and API launch

We commit to ongoing public reporting thereafter, for a minimum of 6 months.

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

Months 1-3: Setup, Initial development of caching services

    • Deliverables – An API which provides historical snapshot caches for the Cardano Node, Kupo, Ogmios. for each of the public networks (mainnet, Pre-prod, and Preview)

    • Outputs – A repository to produce the snapshots locally, a service that provides the snapshots publicly for convenience

    • Intended Outcomes – Developers have a fast and easy way to skip the vast majority of the syncing process.

Months 4-5: Advanced Feature Development

    • Deliverables – API for data retrieval, full documentation and user tutorials.

    • Outputs – More robust services, including data retrieval API, tested integrations, and a full suite of documentation and tutorials.

    • Intended Outcomes – Expand the utility of CardaNow, providing more complex features for developers, and improving the ease of use with comprehensive documentation. Developers will be able to avoid bottlenecks present in existing data services.

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

Months 1-3: Setup, Initial development of caching services: 700 hours

Months 4-5: Advanced Feature Development: 500 hours

Project Management and Coordination: 100 hours

Contingency Reserve: 100 hours

Subtotal: 1400 hours @95/hour = $133,000 USD

Total (@ rate $0.21 USD / ADA): 633330 ADA

**In the interest of full transparency, please note we have applied a conservative USD/ADA exchange rate in pricing this proposal. This is to ensure our operations remain stable regardless of market conditions. Although we firmly believe the future of Cardano is bright, we recognize the price of ADA and all cryptocurrencies is inherently volatile. Our financial obligations are denominated in fiat. Most importantly, this includes the salary of our engineers whose hard work makes projects like this possible. 

In the unlikely scenario of severe negative price movement beyond our forecasted rate, it is possible that MLabs may need to temporarily suspend work on this proposal until the market recovers. Rest assured, this decision would be made solely to protect our business's long-term viability and never taken lightly. 

We appreciate your understanding and support, and we are excited to see what we can achieve together.

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

At first glance, the price of CardaNow may seem substantial. Yet, we believe this project will deliver a significant ROI and impact on the Cardano community.

• Boosting the Cardano Ecosystem – CardaNow will drive the growth and development of the Cardano ecosystem by enabling more efficient and reliable development of Cardano applications. This will invite a wider array of developers to build on Cardano, leading to more dApps and increased adoption.
• Leveraging Expertise – The project harnesses the vast experience of MLabs, a leading consultancy in the Cardano ecosystem. Our expertise, network and reputation assure that CardaNow will meet high standards.
• Provision of a Vital Resource – Reliable access to Cardano data is a critical need for developers building on Cardano. By fulfilling this fundamental need, CardaNow will save developers and dApp considerable time and resources.
• Long-term Maintenance and Support – The budget covers the creation of CardaNow as well as its ongoing maintenance, user support, and regular performance reviews, meaning CardaNow will remain an effective community resource in the long term.
• Transparent Pricing – The cost is based on an industry-standard rate for blockchain consultancy, offering a transparent and fair pricing model for the project

[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.