Synthetix Decentralized Infrastructure Grant Application

Username

Wes Floyd

Grant Description

Hello, my name is Wes Floyd and I’d like to propose a grant to help further “decentralize” the Synthetix Protocol. Specifically, I would like to help the protocol team build a plan to migrate less sensitive compute workloads from centralized cloud infrastructure (e.g. AWS) to a decentralized crypto based alternative (such as Akash).

Grant goals: To further decentralize this service by migrating less sensitive compute workloads off AWS to a more decentralized cloud infrastructure service. Reduce monthly cloud costs for the protocol. Promote the development of critical Web3 core infrastructure built on ETH.

Overview

Specific Plans: Work with protocol operations team to inventory less sensitive compute workloads that would be good candidates for migration to a decentralized service, e.g. documentation, discourse forums. Measure the value to the protocol of migrating the services in terms of monthly cost savings, reputational benefit, service uptime availability etc. Implement a proof of concept to move an initial small workload to a decentralized service

Please find the full grant application here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iSu4-iRpJn9KQr7fLlbXwDufWIk6M0CZMGgv6eyJzvM/edit?usp=sharing

Value to Synthetix

Why decentralize further?

Regulatory risk: KYC (Know Your Customer) and de-platforming risk of cloud services (e.g. AWS) due to ever changing crypto regulatory environment. Financial risk: downtime (outages) caused by cloud providers prompting a shift (or backup planning) to decentralized providers (Link). Reputation risk: decentralized services and organizations cannot market themselves to users as “fully decentralized” if their core services rely on centralized IT. Security: reliance on public cloud providers (AWS, Cloudflare) entail outage (Link) and hacking liability (Link). While any system is exposed to outage and hacking risk, reliance on centralized cloud providers is a very different mode than decentralized providers in regards to transparency and censorship resistance.

Note: as of today, the only viable decentralized compute services are Akash and Flux. My long term goal is to build a more ETH native solution in the future. If the protocol has concerns about deploying to these non-ETH based solutions then your feedback alone will help justify whether there is enough demand for me to build an ETH native decentralized cloud solution.

Project Implementation Plan

Build an inventory of current centralized compute workloads to include the following for each: Cost per month (USD). Deplatform/Outage Risk (high/medium/low) to the protocol if the workload were to be deplatformed or experience an outage. Security Exposure Risk (high/medium/low) of the workload.

Migration plan to a decentralized compute cloud for each workload including: Effort (hrs) require to migrate each workload. Specific steps required to migrate the workload or to make it available as an active standby on the decentralized cloud offering, such as: active data backups, DNS forwarding, load balancing, and credential management.

Proof of Concept: Migrate 1 low risk workload to a decentralized cloud provider to validate the migration plan. Deliver a custom runbook with all steps required for the protocol to launch the workload.

Additional Information

Please find the full grant application here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iSu4-iRpJn9KQr7fLlbXwDufWIk6M0CZMGgv6eyJzvM/edit?usp=sharing

My Background:

I’ve spent the past 15 years working in enterprise technology (Cloud Infrastructure @Google, Decentralized Databases @Cloudera/Hortonworks, Application Development @IBM) and the past 9 years investing and mining crypto. I am now finally able to move full time into crypto and want to help bring the best tooling of enterprise computing to the Ethereum / Web3 community. All of this will first require building better decentralized compute (container / kubernetes) infrastructure, which is the impetus behind this effort.

References: Resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesfloyd/ My crypto/Web3 newsletter: https://wesfloyd.substack.com/ My first crypto twitter post: https://twitter.com/weswfloyd/status/413708321070137344?s=20 My 2017 mining rig: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FHt5wm6XMAU8ndq?format=jpg&name=small

Contact: wesfloyd@gmail.com https://twitter.com/weswfloyd Discord: checkyourself#6104

Funding Request

Inventory plan: 8 hrs Migration plan: 16 hrs Proof of Concept: 16 hrs Rate: $125/hr Total: $5,000 USD (or equivalent in any cryptocurrency/token)

*In addition to the hourly rate, I would like to request to use the or members of the protocol as professional references if they are highly satisfied with the work performed.