GIP-89: Should GnosisDAO support an annual renewal for Blockscout SLA and hosting services?

Blockscout continues to serve the Gnosis ecosystem with an open-source explorer for both the Gnosis mainnet and Chiado testnet instances. Blockscout hosting was originally funded in GIP 54 for mainnet and GIP 71 for the Chiado testnet.

Over the past year, Blockscout has attracted and retained Gnosis users and developers, providing a valuable explorer option and needed redundancy for chain exploration. While Gnosis mainnet users can choose Gnosisscan or Blockscout for their exploration, contract verification, and API needs, Blockscout is currently the only full-featured explorer serving the Chiado execution layer.

While Blockscout usage is down somewhat from its peak when it was the only explorer option for the chain, many users still prefer Blockscout. A few high level statistics from GA & Mixpanel:

~45K monthly views, 9.5K MAU for Gnosis Mainnet Blockscout instance. ~100 contracts verified in the previous month using Blockscout. ~1,000 signups to myAccount since the feature was introduced. ~550 Marketplace views over the previous month. ~7K monthly views for Chiado. Additional chain stats (not instance specific) are available at Gnosis chain statistics | Blockscout.

Over the past year Blockscout has focused on optimizations and improvements which have been upstreamed to the Gnosis instances on a priority basis. These include a complete UI overhaul, multiple indexer upgrades, advanced statistics and the new MyAccount and Dapp Marketplace features.

Updates scheduled for the upcoming year include:

Advanced filtering and sorting options Human readable transactions NFT views and explorer improvements Smart search with AI More Rust-based microservices Support for ENS and ENS forks

Project Deliverables

Continue to maintain Blockscout instances for Gnosis Chain and Chiado testnet on Blockscout’s premises Hosting services for the Gnosis Chain and Chiado testnet (for a period of 1 year with an option to extend) Hosting at blockscout.com (for a period of 1 year with an option to extend) Premium feature updates Priority SLA to ensure uptime and troubleshoot any issues with Gnosis development team Support for end-users of the explorer managed via Discord

Execution Timeline

Start time

Proposed start time for the renewal is October 1, 2023.

Previous services for the hosted mainnet instance began on July 17, 2022 and officially expired on July 18, 2023 (per GIP 54) . Since that time we have hosted the mainnet instance at our own cost. We propose crediting 2 weeks (July 18-July 31) and receiving back payments for 2 months (August and September) of hosting services in addition to the new annual engagement cost. Previous payment for the Chiado testnet was received on November 29, 2022 and scheduled to extend through Nov 29, 2023. We propose reducing the time for this support by 2 months, so that the new engagement can begin and end at the same time as mainnet. New proposed timeline: Gnosis Mainnet and Chiado testnet will be supported from October 1, 2023 - October 1, 2024. If the proposal is still in consideration on Oct 1 but no final decision has been made, hosting and support will continue without interruption until the governance process is completed, and the timeline will be amended accordingly.

Funding & Disbursement

Hosting costs cover high-capacity bandwidth, infrastructure upgrades, data storage (2000GiB and growing), and devops for the networks. Feature enhancements and priority support are also included as part of the package.

Over the past year we have analyzed instance usage and optimized our backend infrastructure and processes, and are happy to offer a discount on pricing for the instances ($500 less per month relative to 2022 pricing). Chiado testnet pricing is scoped as a 2nd instance, resulting in a lower cost.

Gnosis Chain Mainnet: $112,000.00

$8,000 per month for 14 months (August and September 2023 + 1 year of service 1 October, 2023 - 1 October, 2024) Chiado Testnet: $40,000

$4,000 per month for 10 months (credit of October and November 2023 + 1 year of service 1 October, 2023 - 1 October, 2024) Total cost: $152,000.00 due 1 October, 2023

Amount is requested up front for the year. Payment can be made to Blockscout’s SAFE 0xAddress on Ethereum mainnet (0x242ba6d68FfEb4a098B591B32d370F973FF882B7) with USDC or USDT.