NFT Search Engine on Cardano

[IMPACT]

Our NFT search engine will allow  people interested in Cardano NFTs to easily find NFTs with the characteristics they’re looking for. Cardano's metadata space is larger than most blockchains and usually reflected on token creation.  We want to be able to index all NFT/token metadata to return tokens for what the user is looking for. The solution will consist of multiple pieces of infrastructure to run this application smoothly. This search tool will be open publicly to anyone who wants to search Cardano NFTs by metadata.

Our search engine will address the challenges by facilitating a responsive, easy-to-use website for deep metadata search. Outcomes will be communicated via Ideascale, social media sites, as well as via messenger applications.

Since the goal is to provide a fast and performant app that searches deep within blockchain metadata, key challenges will include performance (due to the size of the metadata on the blockchain) as well as accuracy in relevancy.

To address these challenges, we have already developed search algorithms that have proven both performant and accurate using powerful Postgresql queries along with full text indexing.

Scalability - We are exporting, indexing, and searching the entire blockchain and it is constantly growing. We need to be thoughtful when creating the architecture in this manner to be able to scale properly.  One of the ways we will address this concern is by implementing queue patterns within the architecture to achieve some parallel processing as data from the blockchain arrives and requires indexing. Additionally, we are considering making use of Elastic Search to augment our full text indexing capabilities, specifically with the metadata.

[FEASIBILITY]

Our development is already ahead of our initial projects as we have a working POC to demonstrate mitigation of the key challenges discussed above.

We follow an iterative, agile-based methodology implementing LEAN and Kanban techniques to achieve reliable timelines and deliverables.

Our next 3 iterations, delivered over the course of the next 3-6 months, focus on the following items:

Roadmap Milestones:

Milestone 1: (In Progress - 90% Complete)

Milestone 1 encompasses a horizontal ‘slice’ of the architecture and functionality. This is largely a proof of concept that proves that metadata can be indexed, searched, and retrieved and that all behind the scenes components in the architecture can communicate.

Specifically, M1 will deploy a working web app with a free text search field. When the user enters search text, the app should query the blockchain metadata for the supplied terms and return results to the web app. 

Each result should be displayed to the user in a ranked order of relevancy. Each search result should display any related images (e.g. IPFS link), a summary of the metadata, the quantity minted, and any other defined metadata.

Current items remaining for M1 are:

1. UX refinement
2. Bug fixes

Milestone 2: June 2022

M2 is focused on performance and architectural refinement. Specifically we are encompassing feedback from M1 as it relates to performance of both the application and search results (i.e. relevancy). 

Additionally, time will be taken to implement a more thorough queue-based approach to enable concurrency in processing new metadata as it arrives. This will ensure a faster turnaround time between when an asset is minted to when that asset is indexed and available in search.

Our goal for M2 is that newly minted assets should be indexed and available in search in no more than 20 minutes.

Milestone 3: September 2022

M3 will be focused on enhancing search relevancy. As we gain feedback from milestones 1 and 2, we anticipate additional enhancements to search relevancy. One of the key areas of our search relevancy algorithms is based on term weighting, and we expect this algorithm will need to be fine tuned as more users search for various items on the blockchain.

Although we have laid out specific items for the 1st three milestones, our iterative approach means we continue to improve those key, critical items as we gain user feedback. We will adjust deliverable timelines based on development estimates to address early user feedback.

User experience will always continue to improve across milestones, with a focus on a responsive and performant UI.

Beyond this early timeline and strategy, future deliverables will be focused on 3rd party integration with platforms such as IPFS, NFT markets, etc.

$8,400 infrastructure costs

$8,866 Developer/Sysadmin

$8,866 Sysadmin/Management

$8,866 Looking for another developer

Infrastructure costs with no redundancy for the first year.

We plan on adding redundancy and will do this at our cost.

$700/month * 12 = $8400 first year

     $500 db-sync

     $100 cardano-node

     $50 IPFS

     $50 Web/application server

Looking for at least one more developer and DevOps type technical resource.

Engineer - 25 years of software engineering experience, including 10 years of experience in the financial industry working with companies such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, JP Morgan, and others.

Operations/Management - 25 years of IT infrastructure experience. Consults and supports mission critical IT Solutions on a global scale.

[AUDITABILITY]

We will incorporate project management best practices for milestone tracking, velocity review and prediction, and include a heavy focus on using LEAN techniques (e.g. Kanban)

When we officially release the site and search for relevant information.  All the bugs are fixed in code.  Users start using using this site as a search engine for Cardano NFTs.

Entirely new.