Aztecblock - Grant proposal: Block Explorers

Title: Aztecblock

Contact Details: Email: london.developer.group@gmail.com

Summary: Aztecblock is envisioned as a privacy-focused block explorer for the Aztec network. Our team members have extensive experience in developing block explorers, including non-EVM ecosystems. Our goal is to build a reliable platform that enables users to monitor transactions on the Aztec network while providing developers with tools for application development, including sandbox connections and external URLs. Our indexing service will underpin many of our features and future roadmap, as we aim to make this API accessible to the public, supported by a paid component.

Estimated Start and End Date:

  • Start Date: July 15, 2024
  • Development Start Date: August 1, 2024
  • End Date: November 30, 2024
  • ETA Launch: Early December 2024

We request at least one in-person physical meeting at the Aztec office in London at the Aztec team’s convenience before development starts in August. This will ensure better alignment and facilitate better communication going forward.

Team: Due to confidentiality, team details are redacted from the public website. Our team members have had close & fruitful interactions with Aztec team members in public forums in the past. We can provide specific team member details during private discussions.

Tech Stack:

  • Frontend: React
  • Backend: Node.js
  • Database: PostgreSQL
  • Indexers: ElasticSearch (for distributed, RESTful search and analytics)
  • Time Series Databases: For efficient handling of time-stamped data (optional)

Grant Milestones and Roadmap:

Milestone 1: User Interface Development and Indexing System (by August 31, 2024)

  • Objective: Establish a strong foundation for the block explorer by designing a robust indexing system and creating a user-friendly interface.
  • Tasks:
    • Design a comprehensive database schema tailored for efficient block and transaction indexing.
    • Migrate existing block and transaction data to the new indexing system.
    • Develop and run end-to-end tests to ensure the indexing system’s accuracy and resilience.
    • Develop an intuitive and visually appealing interface.
    • Implement the new design to HTML/CSS, ensuring consistency and responsiveness.
  • Outcome: A stable indexing system capable of handling Aztec blockchain data, ready for further feature integration. A polished and user-friendly block explorer UI to build features on.

Milestone 2: Feature Integration (by September 30, 2024)

  • Objective: Enhance the block explorer with all planned features.
  • Tasks:
    • Enable viewing information based on block number, transaction (including transaction effects).
    • Display fee-related data, enabling comprehensive gas and fee information display for blocks and transactions.
    • Display information for contracts, including public transactions where the contract address is a “from” or “to”.
  • Outcome: Fully functional features, establishing a baseline for further refinement in the next milestone.

Milestone 3: Testnet Deployment (by October 30, 2024)

  • Objective: Deploy the block explorer on the testnet for real-world testing.
  • Tasks:
    • Integrate features built in previous milestones for testnet deployment with support for local sandbox.
    • Launch the block explorer on the public testnet and conduct extensive user testing.
  • Outcome: A polished and user-friendly block explorer available for community testing on the Aztec testnet.

Milestone 4: System Stability and Mainnet Preparation (by November 30, 2024)

  • Objective: Ensure the block explorer is stable and ready for mainnet deployment.
  • Tasks:
    • Implement a comprehensive monitoring system to track the performance and health of the indexer and explorer.
    • Perform maintenance and optimizations to enhance system stability and performance.
    • Prepare for the mainnet launch by ensuring all components are robust and thoroughly tested.
  • Outcome: A stable, high-performance block explorer ready for mainnet deployment, with community and stakeholder alignment.

Monetization Strategy: Develop a monetization strategy similar to EVM explorers, focusing on sustainable revenue streams such as RPC SaaS offerings and paid API access to ensure long-term viability and support for the project. Any advertising will only be considered after reaching a critical mass of users, with careful attention to maintaining user privacy.

Grant Amount Requested: Total Requested: $45,000

  • $35,000 for developer costs
  • $5,000 for designer costs
  • $5,000 for infrastructure costs

Grant Budget Rationale: The requested funds will cover costs for developers with expertise in back-end development, front-end CSS, full-stack development, and setting up and managing indexers to make data available for queries. Designer costs and infrastructure costs are also included. This budget allows us to focus on delivering a high-quality, robust block explorer. Additionally, our team will invest time and resources beyond the grant budget, aiming to develop a monetization strategy to ensure long-term sustainability, including potential RPC SaaS and paid API access to the developed indexer. If we have sufficient support from Aztec we’d like to develop on the other potential areas of interest like Viewing Key tool, access to node data and beyond.

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Hi thank you for the post!

Milestone 4: System Stability and Mainnet Preparation (by November 30, 2024)

We only plan to have testnet this year (target: November) so perhaps this was a typo?

Do I understand correctly that you intend to also build an indexer and give paid access to it for devs a little after the launch of the explorer?

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Thanks for your question.

  1. The last milestone was really focussed on System Stability for Testnet launch. The outcome is to refine the Aztec testnet version and the explorer is “ready” for mainnet.

  2. Yes, we want to build an indexer as part of this development, we are thinking this will be the first step of the development plan. In our experience, this speeds up the explorer for a much better UX. This indexer will be open to developers with an end-point, we hope to have GraphQL compatibility (with potential for real-time updates). This will be used by the explorer too. Typically block explorers poll an end point for a block at the block interval resulting in too many calls. A GraphQL end point makes queries much more efficient (also real-time updates via Subscriptions) Developers / DApps could have free access as the volumes are probably limited in the beginning, a paid access could come later if we have too many requests and this service has to be scaled up.

Any further questions, please reach out, thanks!

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