Orcfax: developing the decentralized EchoNet

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Christian Koch

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Requested funds in ada

422625

[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] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

EchoNet is the Orcfax side-chain which incorporates research on consensus, staking, and has been designed and optimized precisely for efficiency, sustainability, and dynamic participation.

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

No

[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.”

N/A

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

Yes

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

We will release deliverables under an Apache 2.0 license.

[METADATA] Horizons

L2

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

EchoNet represents a standalone Orcfax project which begins to meaningfully connect the outputs of Orcfax research & development into consensus and staking with the Orcfax oracle system, all while providing the Cardano community with service agnostic tooling for their own networks.

As Orcfax looks to transition to a fully decentralized oracle design, it becomes increasingly imperative to decouple the federated processes from Orcfax LLC and to design robust Orcfax Validator nodes software which will realize the goal of having 100 decentralized validators supporting Orcfax oracle feeds on Cardano.

EchoNet will be used as the Orcfax side-chain and it will be optimized in order to organize a group of decentralized service providers in an efficient, sustainable, and safe way. EchoNet nodes will be designed to be lightweight and flexibly packaged which will enable them to be easily configured and deployed alongside existing Orcfax infrastructure. The software will be incrementally deployed across decentralized nodes up to 100 participants. These deployments and iterative work will demonstrate what is to come and will pave the way for Phase 3 of the Orcfax Incentivized Testnet.

This proposal will proceed with the following goals:

1. To leverage the work from F12 on consensus and staking mechanisms
2. Establish a foundation by building a practical system that can deploy dozens of nodes and have them communicate and reach consensus over test data.
3. Establish methods for ensuring that the side-chain can efficiently communicate statements or data to the L1 in a fast and secure way.
4. Package this system in a way that it can be reused as a decentralized service provision network, potentially for use cases beyond an oracle. This goal will prioritize:
5. Modularity and reusability
6. Deployment and scaling
7. Abstraction of lower-level components
8. Potential for integration
9. The packaged system should be designed with the ability to integrate with other components (eg the Orcfax ITN).

The proposal culminates in a deployable executable that wraps oracle primitives (including consensus & staking primitives) along with scripts which will enable the network to connect up to 100 nodes. 

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

This proposal serves the Cardano community in two ways.

The Cardano ecosystem is desperate for viable oracle service providers. In the absence of trustworthy, audited oracle providers we lag behind other Layer 1 blockchains in DeFi adoption and expansion. Orcfax has become a key player in the Cardano oracle landscape. The development of EchoNet as the Orcfax Network of validators is another key step in maturing the Orcfax solution and realizing its goal to further decentralize the cardano ecosystem.

Additionally, side-chains are widely needed by cardano projects in order to improve scalability and efficiency, but many have resorted to reinventing the wheel which is time and resource intensive. EchoNet provides service agnostic tooling which has been optimized for easy deployment, sustainability, and efficiency.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

For more than two years the Orcfax team has researched and developed a comprehensive solution to the oracle problem for Cardano-native dApps and smart contracts. We have developed an open oracle publishing protocol and have been using it to publish an ADA/USD price feed to Cardano Mainnet since Q1 of 2024, and many others (including CNT feeds) since the Q3 of 2024.

We have an active Discord and Twitter community where our ideas, requirements and deployment progress are scrutinized and debated. We participate widely in conferences such as Cardano Summit and Rare Evo; we also frequently take part in live events and interviews in order to raise awareness about our mission and product offering.

We expect to discuss and share the findings and deliverables of this project in the same community-driven way to ensure trust and accountability.

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1

a. Output: initial packaging and deployment of echonet core

b. Criteria: Orcfax will package system components so that deployment can facilitate approx. 20 nodes.

c. Evidence: Orcfax will provide proof of deliverables within a public GitHub repository.

Milestone 2

a. Output: demonstrate the communication of data (input) across the network and access to results (output) across the network

b. Criteria: Orcfax will be able to demonstrate the network's ability to execute a limited set of tasks across the network.

c. Evidence: Screenshots and/or video will be uploaded alongside the code in order to illustrate successful implementation.

Milestone 3

a. Output: The integration of a communication protocol between the side-chain (EchoNet) and L1 (Cardano) will build off the success of the previous milestone.

b. Criteria: Orcfax will demonstrate the connection between EchoNet and the L1

c. Evidence: Orcfax will provide screenshots and Tx’s in its public GitHub which demonstrate round tripped data between EchoNet and the L1.

Milestone 4

a. Output: Testing of robustness/dynamic participation/ and testing of consensus/staking.

b. Criteria: Orcfax will execute participation based test scenarios on a limited network in order to further research and development.

c. Evidence: Screenshots and/or video will be uploaded alongside the code in order to illustrate successful implementation.

Milestone 5

a. Output: Remediation and final packaging of system components

b. Criteria: Orcfax will address identified bugs from the previous milestone, further scale the network to accommodate an additional 20+ nodes for final testing, and complete final packaging for system components.

c. Evidence: Orcfax will provide proof of deliverables within a public GitHub repository with graphical assets (which may include screenshots, Tx’s, and/or video clips) as are necessary to illustrate successful completion.

Final Milestone

A demonstration of EchoNet to the community

a. Output: PDF report and MP4 video.

b. Criteria: close-out report and video accepted by Project Catalyst.

c. Evidence: Close-out report shared on Github. Close-out video shared on YouTube.

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Project lead & System Analyst: Christian Koch

Christian is an analyst, researcher and information systems professional who holds a Masters Degree in Archival Science with a focus on blockchain technology. Christian serves as the primary liaison between the development team, Orcfax clients and our community management team.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-mk/

Lead developer: Ross Spencer

Ross is Orcfax’s senior systems architect and leads the development and implementation of the Orcfax architecture infrastructure. Ross has over two decades experience developing and maintaining open-source digital preservation software that is in use at major memory institutions worldwide.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ross-spencer-b6b9b758/

DApp developer: Dominic ‘waalge’ Wallis 

Former Math PhD, ML/NLP engineer, and full stack dev, waalge has been developing dApps on Cardano since the Alonzo HF.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-algernon-wallis-123b42187 

Frontend Developer: Gabriel Chartier

Gabriel is the Orcfax teams’ front-end web developer and leads our Explorer development efforts. Gabriel has significant industry expertise and focusses on projects that improve upon the liberation, accessibility and decentralization of information and knowledge.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-chartier/

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

To accommodate for the fluctuation in ADA price, which creates a conversion risk and a potential budget shortfall, we established a budget base price of $0.25 ADA for calculating our expenses.

We will employ 3 software engineers at part time ($100/hr = 400 ADA/hr) and 1 system analyst at part time ($75/hr = 300 ADA/hr) to complete this work over a six month period. The systems analyst role includes requirements analysis, documentation, user acceptance testing, reporting and community management.

M1. 20d == 140 hrs

M2. 30d == 210 hrs

M3. 30d == 210 hrs

M4. 25d == 175 hrs

M5. 25d == 175 hrs

M6. 10d == 70 hrs

contingency (15%) = 147 hrs

Total hours: 980 + 147 = 1127

Total budget: 1127 x 375₳ (avg cost) = 422,625₳

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

As stated previously. The value to Cardano, and for the money spent on this proposal, is two-fold. Not only is the Cardano community lagging behind other Layer 1 blockchains in its oracle infrastructure, there is also a significant need within the ecosystem for a drop-in layer-2/sidechain node which has been optimized for Cardano and which provides high-level abstraction of layer-2 primitives while being focused on gossip, signing, staking, and consensus

The Orcfax project delivered its CEX and CNT data feeds on Cardano mainnet in mid-2024 as promised. We have implemented a unique approach to data provenance verification and have introduced the most cost-effective model for publishing oracle data in Cardano’s eUTXO model. The development of EchoNet will allow Orcfax to further decentralize its oracle processes in alignment with its development roadmap while simultaneously allowing Orcfax to contribute towards both the maturity of oracle infrastructure within Cardano and Cardano’s decentralization.

The proposal deliverables will also benefit other projects by providing tooling that has been designed to be usable out of the box for those requiring a layer-2 solution but would otherwise be required to build on lower-level tooling at greater expense.