The API Proposal II

Secret Governance
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This proposal is designed to incentivize a few teams to independently maintain a robust API for public use for the Secret Community. Each of these teams has proven an ability to deploy, respond to issues, and maintain APIs for the network. Each team will be compensated $ 150 monthly per Secret Node they offer in their cluster with a cap on incentives at 16 nodes per team.

Last Quarter, the API teams helped mitigations API outages by prompt intervention, notably the outages from the v1.6 upgrade in november 2022 and the outage in march 2023 with the v1.7 upgrade.

For the next quarter Taariq (Quiet Monkey Mind) joins the API team, taking the existing chain of secrets slot.

Teams

Currently for teams we have Secret Saturn (16), Trivium (16), Secret LLC (16), Consensus One (16), and Quiet Monkey Mind (10).

Teams in this proposal are only paid monthly for the nodes they can actually provide. In case a node provider is unable have a node up and running, no payment is made and the left over amount will be rolled over.

Decentralized API

An DNS based load balancer is deployed that connects all the load balancers from each team.

Reporting

Reporting available at: ServerĀ Statistics . Since the collected logs exceeds several GB per day, we opted to only provide a partial report.

Node Counts & Total Costs

With 5 teams this proposal will cost (74 nodes x 150$ x 3 months) 33.300$ and provide 74 total API nodes to the community.

These numbers are not including the 10% volatility buffer, but the final ask will include it.

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To elaborate on the DNS-based load balancer, the API team will be strategically dispersed across various nodes located in different regions of the United States, as well as the European Union. While the specific locations have not yet been finalized and are subject to change, our intention is to optimize our geographic distribution for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

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After some great feedback from todays gov call, hereā€™s the updated proposal:

The purpose of this proposal is to incentivize a few teams to independently maintain a robust API for public use in the Secret Community. These teams have demonstrated their ability to deploy, respond to issues, and maintain APIs for the network. Compensation will be provided to each team at a rate of $150 per month for each Secret Node they offer in their cluster, with a cap on incentives at 16 nodes per team.

During the last quarter, the API teams effectively mitigated API outages through prompt intervention, particularly during the outages resulting from the v1.6 upgrade in November 2022 and the outage in March 2023 with the v1.7 upgrade. For the next quarter, Taariq (Quiet Monkey Mind) will be joining the API team, taking the existing Chain of Secrets slot.

Teams

The teams participating in this proposal include Secret Saturn (16), Trivium (16), Secret LLC (16), Consensus One (16), and Quiet Monkey Mind (10). Payment to teams will be made only for the nodes they can provide on a monthly basis. If a node provider is unable to keep a node up and running, no payment will be made, and any unutilized funds will be rolled over to the following month.

Endpoints & Monitoring

To address technical complexity and streamline reporting procedures, we have limited our DNS-based load balancing to two load balancers, each comprising all nodes from all team members. While teams may continue to run their own endpoints, such endpoints are not part of this proposal. The two load balancers will collect statistics to ensure transparency to the community. Furthermore, we will continue to use our monitoring tools to track the availability of nodes for each team.

Some of these changes were made based on feedback provided during the March 6th, 2023 governance call notes available here , and internal discussions aimed at ensuring seamless operation of the API endpoints associated with the proposal. It is worthy to note that, as a result of these changes, only two endpoints will be available from the API team, specifically https://lcd.secret.express and https://rpc.secret.express. However, queries made by users or dapps will be directed to one of the two load balancer IP addresses, one maintained by Consensus and the other by Secret LLC. Essentially, these two load balancers will operate as a decentralized API for the Secret Network. We do not expect any issues, but if this approach has unintended consequences impacting dapp user experience, we may adjust the plan accordingly and provide updates.

Node Counts & Total Costs

With five teams participating, this proposal will cost $33,300 (74 nodes x $150 x 3 months) and provide a total of 74 API nodes to the community. These figures do not include the 10% volatility buffer, but the final ask will include it. The rolled-over amount from the last quarter ($12,471) brings the total ask to $20,829.

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