PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE PROPOSAL, INCLUDING A DETAILED LIST OF THE MILESTONES AT: https://forum.gnosis.io/t/gip-139-should-gnosisdao-support-probelab-to-produce-network-performance-and-security-for-gnosis-chain-p2p-network/11677.

Executive Summary

This project focuses on enhancing the stability, resilience and performance of the Gnosis Chain P2P layer network through an enhanced set of metrics and the corresponding dashboards that will be public at: https://probelab.io. In particular, the project focuses on four primary areas of improvement, each of which is later composed into a milestone with its own objective and timeline. In summary, these four areas are:

1. Metrics for the Execution Layer P2P Network. We will develop a detailed set of metrics for the Execution Layer DHT network (discv4), similar to the ones produced for discv5, see: https://probelab.io/gnosis/dht/2025-34/ 1 1 for Week 34, 2025. 2. Protocols that Consensus clients are using. We will extend the Nebula crawler to capture “Status and Metadata Exchange” and provide more visibility into the protocols that Consensus Client nodes are running. 3. Actual size of the Gnosis network. We will adapt our Ants architecture to support the discv5 DHT and thus Gnosis peers. This will allow us to detect nodes that are not part of the core of the network but instead, e.g., reside behind NATs. 4. Detect Eclipse Attacks. We will adapt our tooling for the Gnosis Chain discv5 DHT, deploy the tool to monitor the network 24/7 and alert the Gnosis engineering teams when density goes above a certain level.

After more than 3 years in operation with no downtime for our 24/7 monitoring infrastructure, ProbeLab is trusted by top firms to secure their networks and guarantee top performance at all times. The majority of the results we produce for the several networks we are monitoring can be found at: https://probelab.io.

Rationale

We provide the rationale for the work proposed here in terms of impact that will be created for each of the four areas that we outlined in the Executive Summary.

• Produce Metrics for the Execution Layer P2P Network. Develop a detailed set of metrics for the Execution Layer DHT network (discv4), similar to the ones produced for discv5.
  • Why this is important: There is currently no information regarding the size, structure, or geo-distribution of the Gnosis Chain Execution Layer network. With this work we will extend and enhance the Nebula functionality to track EL (discv4) DHT nodes and produce metrics similar to those presented at probelab . io for the Consensus Layer.

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• Identify all protocols that Consensus clients are using. Extend Nebula crawler to capture “Status and Metadata Exchange” and provide more visibility into the protocols that Consensus Client nodes are running.
  • Why this is important: Through the “Status and Metadata Exchange”, we will be able to find out details regarding the following performance- and security-critical items:
    • Distribution of nodes up to date with the canonical chain and the nodes that are still syncing it
    • Attestation Subnets overlap
    • Sync Committee Subnets overlap
    • Monitoring how many tools (or attackers) are there not able to help syncing
    • Identify nodes with open publicly Beacon-API ports

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• Identify the actual size of the Gnosis network. Adapt our Ants architecture to support the discv5 DHT and thus Gnosis peers. This will allow us to detect nodes that are not part of the core of the network but instead, e.g., reside behind NATs.
  • Why this is important: Today, we do not have an accurate view of the size of the Gnosis discv5 DHT network. it is not clear how many DHT client nodes interact with the discv5 DHT, how many peers are behind a NAT, or the geo-distribution of those nodes. Among other things, this makes it difficult to have a view of the structure and geo-distribution of the network, as well as get accurate numbers on the energy footprint of the Gnosis network. Together with the existing discv5 reports/data, this will give a comprehensive view of the network.

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• Build tooling to detect Eclipse Attacks. ProbeLab has built a sophisticated tool to monitor how many peers reside at particular spots around the DHT key space. Higher than normal density of peers can reveal that there is a potential eclipse attack going on in the DHT network, affecting the performance of the overall system. We will adapt our tooling for the Gnosis Chain discv5 DHT, deploy the tool to monitor the network 24/7 and alert the Gnosis engineering teams when density goes above a certain level. The corresponding results for the Ethereum network can be found here: https://probelab.io/ethereum/keydensity/
  • Why this is important: Eclipsing peers in the DHT network can be catastrophic for individual validators. Although this tool does not mitigate the attack, it is very effective in identifying it.

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Who benefits and how: Having an accurate view of the structure and performance of the P2P network benefits the community at large, given that detailed metrics and relevant alerts increase confidence in correct operation of the network. At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, validators, client teams, infrastructure providers and core protocol developer teams will benefit the most from the outcome of this project. Network, infrastructure and protocol upgrades won’t fly blind, but instead will have an accurate view of the behaviour of the network and will be able to act accordingly.

Budget

The breakdown of the costs per milestone are given below. A more detailed breakdown of expenses is as follows: 60% of the budget will go towards development, 20% towards software and infrastructure maintenance and 20% towards infrastructure cost.

• Milestone 1: $35k
• Milestone 2: $20k
• Milestone 3: $30k
• Milestone 4: $20k

Total Cost: $105k

Payment Schedule

Payment is expected upon successful completion of each of the Milestones, given that all of them have a clear, concrete and tangible outcomes/deliverables.

Future Maintenance

The maintenance and infrastructure costs amount to approximately 40% of the grant. We plan to submit a separate proposal for ~$35k for maintenance and infra costs (for all metrics and dashboards) 1 year after the completion of this project.

As an example, if work on this project started on Oct 1st 2025 and finished on Dec 31st 2025, then the current grant covers maintenance and infra costs for 1 year, i.e, up to Dec 31st 2026. We would submit a separate proposal then to cover costs for 2027.

The subsequent grant will cover all metrics and dashboards, the tooling running 24/7 and tooling adjustments for all network upgrades that will happen during this period.

For a detailed description of the four (4) Milestones please read the full proposal at: https://forum.gnosis.io/t/gip-139-should-gnosisdao-support-probelab-to-produce-network-performance-and-security-for-gnosis-chain-p2p-network/11677.

Evaluation

Success for ProbeLab’s work comes when networks face no surprises. We strive to build resilient software that runs 24/7 and produces metrics and alerts for engineering teams. After more than 3 years in operation, we have never experienced outages longer than a few minutes, which makes us confident that any incident will be captured by our specialised tooling.

On the technical front, some evaluation metrics are as follows:

• Eclipse detection time target: Equal to the crawling frequency, currently set to 2hrs.
• Node coverage accuracy: Less than 3% discrepancy to actual network size. Discrepancy is due to node churn and routing table update timings.
• Node geolocation accuracy: N/A. Depends on the accuracy of our database provider. We haven’t received any complaints from our monitored networks so far.

Team/ Organization

ProbeLab is developing measurement and monitoring tooling for the P2P layer of blockchain networks. ProbeLab is the leading team in P2P network metrics and analytics with extensive experience working on libp2p- and devp2p-based stacks. Running specialised infra 24/7, the team is producing both executive and tailor-made dashboards on metrics that are most valuable to engineering teams. Tailor-made dashboards, metrics and studies are normally published in forums, such as ethresear.ch. In some cases ProbeLab supports internal engineering teams with data that is not made publicly available. The majority of the results we produce for the several networks we are monitoring can be found at: https://probelab.io.

GitHub repositories maintained by the ProbeLab team:

• ProbeLab GH Org: https://github.com/orgs/probe-lab/

GitHub profiles of ProbeLab team members:

• Dennis Trautwein (DevOps and Protocol Engineer): GH: @dennis-tra
• Mikel Cortes (Protocol Engineer): GH: @cortze
• Steph Samson (DevOps and Infrastructure Engineer)
• Yiannis Psaras (Team Lead): GH: @yiannisbot

Conclusion

The P2P layer of any blockchain network is the basis of everything that is built on top. It is imperative to keep the P2P network healthy and avoid collapse at this layer, because in that case, everything on top collapses as well. We argue that this is possible through detailed insights and metrics on core protocol functionality.

This GIP proposes critical metrics for the Gnosis Chain P2P layer that will keep the network resilient, secure and performant.