RadiumBlock - RPC-node services for Q2 2023 Q3 2023

Astar Astar Initiatives
1

Date: 20/10/2023

Requested allocation: 210682.93 ASTR

ASTAR Account: W5UDvLQnfDRCcNS9Aj8pa96c3chgsd83B3wPsmnGZXKeE2R

Short Description: Operate RPC services for the community for April to September 2023

TLDR;

  • RadiumBlock is a high performance infrastructure provider for the Polkadot/Substrate ecosystem.
  • We operate the highest performance RPC service in polkadot ecosystem OnFinality vs. Radiumblock.co on Kusama: Independent and transparent RPC performance comparison results
  • RadiumBlock request $8638 reimbursement for Q2 2023 and Q3 2023 operation of RPC nodes
  • We operate a Shiden collator and have subtracted the earnings
  • In future, we propose to run an Astar and Shiden RPC for a combined total of $2500 per month (minus collator earnings)
  • RadiumBlock would offer an RPC package to:
    • Operate archive node based RPC endpoint for Astar and Shiden
    • Support both websocket and http for RPC requests
    • Offer 6 location PoP (1-US,1-EU,2-Asia, 1-Africa, 1-South America)
    • Use our on-prem high availability hardware at collocated data centers for better cost and decentralization
    • Offer low latency access across the world

RadiumBlock’s full proposal can be found here: Astar Endpoint Proposal Q2 Q3 2023.docx - Google Docs

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Hello Astar community,
Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Meanwhile we recently compared our Astra endpoint vs other providers to demonstrate our performance:

Here is a similar comparison for polkadot

Cheers.

RadiumBlock Team

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Hi RadiumBlock Team,

Thanks for sharing the reports and being transparent. :slight_smile:

It seems to give us more insights in regard to where the query are coming the most and stability of the RPCs, etc. Looks very nice!

I was curious and would like to understand more about the reports, it’d be great if I can know the following three points further:

  • What is the column 429 for?
  • It seems there is no failed query (or request) from RadiumBlock team, which looks very stable. Perhaps, this report would also help the Blast API team to look into the error message also shared in the report?

Best,
Pithecus

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Kudos, RadiumBlock! Impressive RPC services, transparent operations, and a forward-looking Astar-Shiden RPC proposal. Your commitment to performance and decentralization is valued. Excited for a successful Q2 and Q3 collaboration!

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Hi @RadiumBlock,

Please update the requested allocation with the current EMA30 and I will open the vote.

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RCPs are important to guarantee secure connections to any network, great job guys!

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Great! I would like to hear a technical opinion from The Team about the RPC performance shared above. @bLd759, @hoonkim, @PierreOssun.

Thanks

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I have read your report and I can see your excellent and transparent work, we need more of this. Thank you team.

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Hello all glad to hear the comments from you all !
We are excited for our collaboration and look forward to expanding our service to Shiden soon.

@Gaius_sama we are unable to edit the original post so posting updated ASTAR token count here(based on EMA30). We have also updated the original google docs proposal.
EMA30 on November 16, 2023 = US$0.06
Requested Allocation 143966.67 ASTR

@pithecus our understanding is that 429 refers to the HTTP error code for too many requests.
We would like to make it clear that comparenodes is a third party service. We were also not trying to pick on Blast API or any other provider rather just looking to demonstrate the quality of our service. Anyone can use comparenodes’ services to measure as well as analyze endpoints, so yes it may be useful to Blast API team.

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Hi @RadiumBlock team,

Thanks for the detailed response.
I am also fully aware that you did not pick up a specific RPC for comparison. What I meant was also the same as your opinion that any RPC provider can check the performance based on the report and make use of it for maintenance or so :slight_smile:

Thanks!

Bests,
Pithecus

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Thank you, I will now create the poll.

Payment of 143 966.67 ASTR to RadiumBlock for Q2 2023 Q3 2023
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
3 Likes
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Hello @RadiumBlock,

It’s very important to have a reliable RPC node with good uptime and low latency. I think you guys are doing a great job, and thank you for being very transparent and generating some benchmarks so the community can understand the importance of this.

13

Thank you for the report, and I’ll support this request. More robust RPCs contribute to greater decentralization.

14

Appreciate the detailed report, and I’m fully behind this request. Strengthening RPCs adds a valuable layer to enhance decentralization.

15

Thanks for the report :slight_smile: I support this request :+1:

1 Like
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Good to see more decent RPC services on the Astar ecosystem. Thank you :saluting_face:

17

I voted no for this because Astar Network already has more than enough RPC providers for public users. What’s the extra value having Radium beside having:

  • Blast
  • OnFinality
  • Dwellir
  • Astar Foundation RPC services
    That also use Treasury for their services (except Astar Foundation RPC services, this is paid with our runway)

I prefer treasury being used on projects or infra projects that fill in a missing gap than using treasury for your own business. I see more value in providing RPC services from project demand that you acquire to the Astar ecosystem.

18

I share the same vision as Maarten. Voted no.

19

I am happy to support this proposal on my side, as RadiumBlock has provided a high quality service with a very limited cost.

But this may be the last time I do, not only to RadiumBlock but to all external RPC providers: the community needs guidance rather than competition between providers.
We need RPC providers to work together and agree on a sustainable infra cost and unified metrics so the community members can understand the point of it.

At Astar team, we have been working very hard on reducing our own infra costs to make it sustainable and fit to the need of users.
If RPC providers can’t collaborate together and propose something common and understandable to the whole community, I will vote no to each next proposals.

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I voted yes go ahead guys. keep providing Astar with quality service.