Infura-like Cardano API IaaS

Provide fast, rich and reliable API access to Cardano for developers and applications through HTTPS and websockets on mainnet and testnets.

Our open-source Adalite backend is used by numerous wallets and developers. Vacuumlabs has 200 engineers and experienced Cardano team.

This project is proposed by Vacuumlabs, a software development company with a lot of experience with Cardano ecosystem. We have previously delivered several software development projects with IOHK, Emurgo and Cardano Foundation. We are developing the Cardano integrations with Trezor and Ledger HW wallets. Vacuulabs is also developing and operating web-based Cardano wallet AdaLite. We also have a team of highly skilled DevOps engineers who will help us create and run the infrastructure required by this demanding project. https://www.vacuumlabs.com/
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Infura is a Infrastructure-as-a-Service solution on Ethereum blockchain and it was (and still is) one of the most important drivers for Ethereum adoption by developers. We are proposing to develop a similar service for the Cardano blockchain. As of now, Cardano developers have to set up the whole infrastructure to have access to the blockchain. Our solution removes the pain of the heavy lifting and offers developers a head start in building the application layer immediately.
Read more about how Infura is considered the Secret Weapon of Ethereum infrastructure and why we think Cardano should also have one: https://consensys.net/blog/news/why-infura-is-the-secret-weapon-of-ethereum-infrastructure/
We split the usage into usage tiers. We will offer free plans for the developer community and the less demanding applications. On the other hand, to provide high throughput and fast responses even for huge amounts of requests, we would offer paid tiers for those who really cut the edge. We would monetize the heaviest tiers in order to cover the additional hardware cost and ensure long-term sustainability of the project. The solution will be open source, as we value transparency in our every project. We will provide an API as rich as possible to suit all possible needs. This includes the well-known cardano-rest endpoints and the endpoints for use cases that we and the community would see fit.
Cardano dApp developers will be able to instantly start developing and running their applications on the blockchain without the necessity to set up nodes or own back-end services. Once the projects are mature enough and decide to have full control over their infrastructure, they can either use our open-source code to set up their own instances of the back-end or they can build their own custom backend.
We have been serving adalite-backend-service to the world for several years and we know what it takes to ensure safety and fairness. We've had experience with offering reliable backend API to web wallets and we regularly deal with phishers and scammers. AdaLite back-end API is used by multiple 3rd parties and AdaLite back-end was forked and used as self-hosted back-end for multiple wallets and services.
We will need 60.000$ to fund a team of skilled developers to deliver the solution and cover the server costs for 6 months. Engineers that architected and developed the AdaLite back-end infrastructure will be part of this team to provide senior oversight, architect the infrastructure and deliver the solution. Our solution will be highly scalable in order to scale up in case of a high influx of projects interested to build on top of it.
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Project Roadmap:
Month 1 - 2 : Initial design of the solution. Build the basic infrastructure, deployment, hosting and rate-limiting. Create a prototype of a web service platform. Serve cardano-rest component endpoints through HTTPS.
Month 3 - 4: Refinement of the design if needed to accommodate Cardano protocol updates (smart contracts, multi-sig, ). Implement custom API endpoints requested by the community and those that we think are missing in IOHK tools. Testnet support. Serve key endpoints to at least 5 developers and/or applications. Beat the performance of adalite-backend-service and reach more than 99% uptime.
Month 5: Finished product - fully functional frontend management application with free and possibly paid tiers, deployed reliable public infrastructure with cardano-rest and custom endpoints. The API is complete, uptime is close to 100%, onboarding of new users is seamless and we serve data to more than 25 developers and/or applications at lightning speed.
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How do we envision long-term phasing of the project beyond Phase1?
Phase 2:
If the project will be accepted by the Cardano developers, we will need additional funding for the 2nd phase to work on scalability, improve UX/UI and add additional services to provide full product. We expect that most projects could benefit from websockets for optimal real-time speed.
Phase 3:
If the project will lead to success, we will explore options on how to decentralize the solution. If the project will achieve break-even, we won't need additional funding for it. If the operations will be at loss but the project will be bringing significant value to the Cardano ecosystem, we may ask for additional funding. This would be a very challenging phase.
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IP Policy
Most likely Apache-2.0 License for all back-end and API related code
Possibly closed source code license for user access management platform to limit potential malicious behaviour.
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We define the success of this project as eliminating the burden of developers and applications which resides in the huge overhead of initial setup and development. Making this part of the development easier can attract new developers and save them the precious time and resources that could be spent on bringing fresh, innovative and crucial additions to the Cardano ecosystem and thereby positively influencing wider Cardano adoption and uptake.