We hereby submit this proposal for the Astar dApp Staking listing. Subscan is a comprehensive and widely-used explorer and indexer that has been serving the Astar community for over 4 years.
Subscan is a robust multi-chain explorer for Polkadot, Kusama, and EVM-compatible networks. It enables users to easily explore transactions, accounts, blocks, and network statuses across both Substrate and EVM environments. Through advanced data analytics and real-time insights, Subscan provides developers, validators, and the Web3 community with deeper visibility into blockchain activities. With continuous support for new networks, Subscan ensures reliable infrastructure for the evolving Web3 ecosystem.
Key Features
Subscan has been diligently providing the following essential services for Astar, Shiden and Shibuya:
Computing Resources: Collecting and parsing chain data, and serving web user requests to ensure smooth network operations.
Database Storage: Indexing and storing chain data for seamless data retrieval and accessibility.
Network Egress Bandwidth: Maintaining optimal network performance to cater to web user requests.
Monitoring and DevOps: Implementing an internal alerting pipeline and automation for stable network operations.
Node Status Monitoring and Notification: Promptly notify the network development team of any issues.
Technical Support: Offering comprehensive technical assistance for the networks’ uninterrupted functioning.
All rewards from dApp Staking will be used to support maintenance, hosting, and regular updates and upgrades for Subscan Astar, Shiden, and Shibuya instances.
We are excited about the opportunity to continue contributing to the Astar ecosystem and provide valuable insights and tools to its community. We kindly request your consideration for the Astar dApp Staking program.
Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions or require additional information.
I’m 200% on board—Subscan is absolutely essential for transparency in blockchain activity.
I have a question for you: as you know, dApp rewards are largely based on the Tier level, which depends on the amount of ASTR staked on your dApp. This means that over time, the support might not fully cover the costs of maintenance, hosting, and regular updates for the Subscan instances on Astar, Shiden, and Shibuya.
With that in mind, could you please share what the minimum dollar value Subscan used to request to Astar for this service?
Subscan is one of the most important service providers for the Astar Substrate and Astar EVM networks. Its ease of use and the vast amount of data it provides allow the community to have full visibility of their interactions with our protocol. For this and other reasons, I support the inclusion of Subscan.
@Mouthmouth68 Regarding your question, you can gain more context by reading this Subscan post.
I’m really happy to see more and more serious projects applying for dApp staking. I’m a frequent user of Subscan, which has also helped me help struggling users on the Astar Discord. Regarding reward management, I believe it’s right to use them to keep the entire Subscan infrastructure running.
My vote can only be a resounding YES.
Subscan has been an essential part of the Astar ecosystem for years, providing reliable tools and visibility that the community relies on every day. It’s great to see you applying for dApp Staking, and I’m confident your continued support and infrastructure will keep adding strong value to the network.
Oh, so the service costs about $17k every 3 months?
That’s a whopping $70k per year!
I never imagined Subscan integration would cost this much annually
A T2 barely covers this at the current ASTR price
I understand now why Interlay decided to change for another BC explorer
I’m very much in favor of the listing. However, I’d like to better understand the team’s plans to enrich the Astar Network ecosystem and the ASTR token — especially considering that the service provided is already funded by the Foundation.
I’m in favor of Subscan’s listing.
I’ve personally been using Subscan for many years and I’ve always found it extremely reliable and well-made, a very useful tool for on-chain analysis on Astar.
I just have one question of clarification: in the post it’s mentioned that the rewards from dApp Staking will be used to cover (or contribute to) the costs of maintenance, hosting, etc. But as far as I understand, these costs are already covered by the quarterly service fees that Astar pays Subscan.
So, would the rewards from dApp Staking represent an extra source of income? And if so, could they eventually be used to further develop or provide additional features/services for users exploring Astar via Subscan?
Thanks for the clarification, and again, thank you for the great work you’ve been doing for so many years in supporting the ecosystem.
I think they are planning to do just like in their proposal with SDN token : offset quaterly fee for Astar/Shibuya/Shiden intégration on subscan (~17k$ / 3 months) with rewards from Astar&SDN dApp staking.
I suppose that remaining fee, if not enterly covered by dApp rewards, will be requested through founding proposal.
If this is indeed the plan, the only advantage I see here is that the selling pressur induce by the 17k$ per 3 months may be spread over the 3 months period instead of all in one go after payment of founding proposal. On the other side, they will need a T2 support i.e. 75M ASTR to cover most of the fee.
Yes, I think the model already adopted with SDN is a very good one. @Mouthmouth68 as you mentioned, the clear advantage would be exactly that, spreading the selling pressure of ASTR into USDC/USDT over the 3-month period instead of one single sale after each treasury payment.
If the plan is the same of SDN, it could also be interesting (through governance referenda) to evaluate the possibility of allocating a specific treasury fund to help reach the T2 tier. In this way, the dApp Staking rewards could fully cover the total service costs, and the selling pressure would be completely diluted across the staking periods.
I’m fine with the idea of allocating a specific treasury fund to help reach the T2 tier only on the condition that any amount of ASTR paid over their usual fee would be transfered for the next quarter payement and not in their pocket in order to not over pay for the same service
Subscan is an essential explorer for Astar, and I support covering its expenses through dApp Staking. While the Q2 costs have already been settled through the Treasury, future expenses will continue to arise.
As others have mentioned, it’s better to have the revenue from dApp Staking gradually sold off rather than creating concentrated selling pressure every quarter. If the revenue is insufficient, the shortfall can simply be covered by requesting funds from the Treasury.
Even if the revenue from dApp Staking exceeds expenses, I think Subscan should be free to use the surplus as they see fit. After all, that would indicate that Subscan is a project highly attractive to stakers. Of course, if Subscan chooses to return (or burn) the excess, that decision should be respected.
Subscan do not build anything on Astar, they are simply providing their blockchain explore services for Astar. Therefore, if Subscan receives more ASTR than is strictly necessary to cover the cost of their services without providing additional value than what we are paying for, it is unreasonable to pay them extra for the exact same service.
this is why, in such a case, it would be preferable to maintain the current payment system based on quarterly treasury requests, ensuring that payments reflect the true value of the services rendered.
Moreover, over paying could lead to more tokens being sold on DEXs or CEXs than necessary, potentially causing unnecessary market pressure—even if sales are spread out over time rather than occurring immediately after each payment.
There is also uncertainty around how the Subscan team will manage their dApp rewards. Will they claim and sell rewards weekly, biweekly, monthly, or quarterly? Depending on their strategy, the price impact of their sales might not differ significantly from the current situation.
Additionally, there is a risk related to timing and price fluctuations. For example, if they sell most of their rewards when prices are low but payment obligations occur when prices have risen substantially, Astar may be required to top up additional ASTR while fewer ASTR would have been enough to cover for their quarterly invoice. This creates a financial risk where Astar covers downside price fluctuations by topping up tokens, and conversely, may overpay when ASTR prices are high.
Given these considerations, I believe it is prudent to discuss clear terms regarding surplus revenue management and reward liquidation schedules before approving Subscan’s participation in the dApp staking program. This will help prevent future misunderstandings or frustrations for both parties & the community.
I think there may have been a misunderstanding, so let me clarify.
As with Subscan’s previous requests, my view is that the portion of costs not covered by Shiden and Astar’s dApp Staking rewards should be paid from the Treasury. On the other hand, if the costs can be fully covered by dApp Staking rewards, then Subscan should be free to keep any surplus.
If, however, the Treasury itself stakes to Subscan in order to ensure coverage within the dApp Staking reward range (Tier 2), then any excess ASTR should either be returned or burned. Since this staking would come directly from the Treasury, it would not be the result of explicit community support, and therefore Subscan would not have the legitimate right to keep the surplus. I also agree that detailed conditions would need to be defined in order to measure this accurately.
That said, this process cannot be fully enforced on-chain, so there is no guarantee that it would be executed exactly as agreed. For this reason, I believe it is better to continue with the current approach: Subscan uses dApp Staking rewards first, and if those are insufficient, they can request the shortfall from the Treasury.
Thank you so much for the warm feedback and all the thoughtful comments We really appreciate how carefully the community is reviewing this proposal, and we’re more than happy to answer any doubts or questions.
Our goal with this approach is simple — to ease the burden on the Treasury.
The formula is straightforward:
Treasury support = Service cost – dApp Staking rewards
We’ll do this on a quarterly basis.
If rewards don’t cover the full cost, we’ll request the shortfall from the Treasury.
If rewards are higher than costs, we won’t take them as profit — instead, the surplus will be rolled over to the next quarter to offset expenses.
This isn’t something new — the same model has already been working on the Shiden network, and it has proven to be fair and transparent.
We also want to share openly about costs: right now, Subscan runs on GCP and other big infrastructure, which is quite expensive and puts pressure on the downstream ecosystem too. That’s why we’re building our own PVE infrastructure, planned to go live in Q1 2026. When that happens, our costs will drop a lot, and we’ll come back to the community to talk about the next steps together.
With this approach:
The Treasury doesn’t need to worry about ASTR price swings.
Surplus rewards are clearly used for future costs.
Everyone has a fair and transparent mechanism.
And most importantly — it makes the whole model more sustainable for the long term.
Thanks again for your engagement and support We’re happy to keep this discussion open and work with you all towards a solution that benefits the whole Astar ecosystem.
Thank you @Subscan team for the clear explanation.
I think this model is transparent and very useful, especially because any surplus is not taken as profit but rolled over to cover future quarters.
I’d like to add one reflection/question:
If in the future (especially after your transition to the new PVE system, which will reduce costs) the dApp Staking rewards are often higher than the actual costs, could we think of a mechanism like this:
When there is a surplus → it goes into a “fund” to cover the costs of the next quarters.
If the fund reaches a maximum cap → any further excess is burned to reduce the supply of ASTR.
This could ensure both long-term sustainability and a direct positive impact on ASTR’s tokenomics.
We really appreciate how carefully the community is reviewing this proposal, and we’re more than happy to answer any doubts or questions.
We’re happy to keep this discussion open and work with you all towards a solution that benefits the whole Astar ecosystem.