Proposal from Edge & Node for Ampleforth to Decentralize Subgraphs to The Graph Network

Ampleforth Governance
#1
  1. What Edge&Node / Subgraph provides
  • Edge & Node is the founding core dev team behind The Graph (now one of five core dev teams working on the Protocol). We help push the protocol forward, provide real-time tech support, provide marketing support, among other things to help adoption and evolution of The Graph.
  • Subgraphs outsources data indexing and querying to the Graph protocol so that projects don’t need to either run archive nodes themselves as well as build/maintain their APIs, or pay centralized providers which are both much more expensive and susceptible to being shut down (centralization problems).
  1. The migration to the more decentralized form your protocol is taking
  • With 31 chains integrated, most are currently on our centralized product (the hosted service) that will not be around forever. However, ETH mainnet subgraphs can move to the Decentralized network.
  • The Decentralized Network is what the Graph is supposed to be, and will be, for all chains across the ecosystem. It’s a protocol that applications need to truly call themselves decentralized.
  • When subgraphs move their API endpoints to the decentralized network, there are 162 indexers (and growing) that can provide indexing support so that, if one (or two or ten or more) indexers shut down, the rest can immediately come in to provide support.
  • There is better uptime and many performance metrics are as good or better than the hosted service, and upgrades are shipped out often to make it even faster and more reliable.
  1. Edge&Node has identified the Ampleforth Protocol as a great candidate for early migration
  • For early migrant participants, we have allocated a grant pool to help mitigate transition, GRT curation signal (10K GRT recommended), and initial query costs.
  • We are offering a 50K GRT grant (30K GRT immediately before or after migration and 20K vesting quarterly over 4 years) until the end of April.
    • If migration cannot happen before April 29, we will need to lower the grant amount to 15K to ensure the longevity of the grant pool.
    • Either of these grants will be more than sufficient to cover initial curation signal and a long runway of query costs.
  1. Ampleforth project also gains more decentralization from this migration
  • As mentioned, not only is Ampleforth receiving a more effective indexing experience via the network than the hosted service, but it’ll truly be able to champion decentralization for its application, making the application more robust/antifragile. Extremely important in today’s day and age.
  1. You’re offering to assist in the migration, and provide a grant of GRT tokens to cover protocol costs
  • Along with the migration grant, to decrease Ampleforth’s dev resources lift and decrease gas costs, our Solutions Engineers can do most of the steps (steps 1 to 3 below) and then just hand off the keys to Ampleforth after API endpoint migration to the network.
    • Steps Edge & Node can do for Ampleforth:
      • Deploy the subgraph to the subgraph studio
      • Create an API key in the studio and fill it with GRT (on Polygon)
      • Publish the subgraph and signal on the network to attract indexers (10K GRT recommended)
    • The step that Ampleforth will need to do:
      • Migrate API after indexers pick up the subgraph

We hope you all find this proposal attractive and are able to move forward before the deadline to sunset the grant program to the lower level. Thanks for all you do for the space!

Kyle Rojas
kyle@edgeandnode.com

7 Likes
#2

Thank you @kyle-edgeandnode and Edge&Node for the offer for the GRT grant and migration assistance.

Ampleforth currently uses three subgraphs: 2 on Ethereum mainnet and one on Avalanche. The centralized, hosted service is currently used to power the UI layer for the v2 geyser and the UI for the protocol dashboard.

The relevant impact for Ampleforth is:

  1. I believe that Edge&Node is only migrating the Eth mainnet service, so the Avalanche subgraph will remain as is.
  2. The hosted service does not currently charge for indexing or queries. The decentralized indexers will charge via the GRT token.
  3. Ampleforth interfaces will gain decentralization in the components listed above that rely on subgraph calls.
  4. At .00003 GRT per query, our usage would be ~$100 / month at current prices [edit: not more than $200 / mo]. The 50K GRT Grant should indeed provide for a long runway.

I and the dev team at Fragments are willing to offer our support for the migration process.

Edge&Node has asked for the DAO to ratify the agreement before a grant can be executed. I propose that a snapshot vote of FORTH holders is used to accept the proposal. After that, if successful, the GRT can be transferred to a DAO-controlled wallet.

7 Likes
#3

This is an exciting proposal and another way to further decentralize Ampleforth’s infrastructure. :tada:

As an independent node provider I would be happy to assist in any way as well. Regardless I would happily vote in favor of this proposal :slight_smile:

I am curious is there added complexity on the client side besides topping up a wallet for payment with GRT, if any?

#4

I support this proposal.

#5

Payments for queries occur on the Polygon network, so once the DAO receives the funds we’ll need one onchain action to authorize bridging to a some sort of multisig wallet over there. This could be all at once or the GRT could be moved over in installments if that’s what the DAO wanted.

So there is more complexity in that sense, but it’s very minimal once the migration is complete.

1 Like
#6

A signal poll has been posted here:
https://signal.ampleforth.org/#/proposal/0x881a38885e1bf4d133bccbf4bec00b5b672cbe9082407753c97d5d951e207888

Please vote when it goes live!

2 Likes
#7

The signal vote completed with 100% approval from the DAO. Thanks everyone for participating.

1 Like
#8

Hi everyone,

Update on the progress. Ampleforth KYC and docusign has been completed! Our team will begin doing most of the technical migration process for you:

  1. Deploy the subgraph to the subgraph studio
  2. Create a multisig, including the ETH address on file for Ampleforth
  3. Create an API Key
  4. Bridge GRT to Polygon in the Subgraph Studio billing page and fill the API Key with at least 2K GRT (from the grant)
  5. Publish the subgraph and curate 10K GRT to curate the subgraph to attract Indexers (from the grant)

After all of this is done, once Indexers pick up the subgraph is indexed by multiple Indexers, we will work with the Ampleforth team to migrate the API to the decentralized network in the front end, at which point we will pull out of the multisig and give full control of the wallet/API Key to Ampleforth!

If you have any questions on the process, I’m always available:

Telegram: @kyleArojas

5 Likes
#9

Thanks for the update.