Summary

Pier Two would be a great candidate to support the Metis Decentralised Sequencer ecosystem.

Here’s more on Pier Two: Pier Two operates Australian-based enterprise-grade infrastructure for institutional clients. Which includes operating infrastructure for the Metis ecosystem with Chainlink Data Feed support. Pier Two has been supporting Chainlink since testnet, and was onboarded to mainnet in 2019.

Operationally, Pier Two is providing secure staking services for >USD$350M in assets across several blockchain networks, primarily Ethereum.

Pier Two is committed to open-source development, and has contributed to implementations of messaging standards like Discv5.

Supporting Arbitrum since mainnet launch in 2021, Pier Two is one of 9 validators selected by Arbitrum to operate Arbitrum infrastructure.

In remaining at the cutting edge of industry developments, Pier Two actively contributes and participates in the EigenLayer ecosystem with AVS and LRT support.

Pier Two remains committed to security, reliability and support for networks we operate infrastructure. Based on the experience of Pier Two's team and alignment with the values of open source development, we believe Pier Two represents a perfect candidate for the sequencer pool. Here’s some more reason’s why:

1. Metis Operational Experience
2. Performance Feedback
3. SLAs
4. Community
5. Anti-Slashing Commitment

Following this we discuss our Deployment Roadmap.

Metis Operational Experience

We currently run two Metis full nodes for our Chainlink Infrastructure, so adding any support for the sequencer would be trivial. As a team that has been operating Chainlink infrastructure for nearly 5 years, we have a lot of experience running infrastructure that depend on consistent connectivity to load balanced RPCs.

Performance Feedback

Should Pier Two be successful in this proposal, we will provide continuous feedback to the Metis team on how to improve the sequencer technology and optimise it for the Metis L2.

We believe that we can help to set standards for other Sequencer Nodes with respect to monitoring, alerting and best practices around security and operation. With our experience as Chainlink operators for nearly 5 years we believe we’re more than capable.

Lastly, Pier Two has previously built discv5 in c# so we have a solid technical understanding of the p2p layer that is required for the Metis Sequencers to be performant and networked in the decentralised system.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

1. We will maintain a 99.95% uptime SLA with the Metis Sequencer. Note that this will be once the network commences, not in any test phases, as well as anything that is in Pier Two’s control versus sequencer bugs or issues.
2. We will maintain both cold physical and encrypted backups of Metis Sequencer keys in the event of disaster. This is in place in the rare scenario that the signers of the MPC setup that controls MetisSequencerSet contract settings lost access - the Pier Two sequencer could continue to operate in any event.

Community

As members of the Metis community we will participate in events, online forums and media to support the growth of the Metis ecosystem with the Pier Two brand. With a focus on APAC, primarily Australia, Pier Two can help build awareness of Metis across different events and be a touch point for the APAC industry connecting to Metis.

Pier Two is willing to work with partners of Metis to facilitate METIS staking on the sequencer. Pier Two will strive to achieve 100,000 METIS by working with partners in order be as prevalent a sequencer as possible.

Anti-Slashing Commitment

Whilst slashing conditions are still to be determined by Metis DAO, from the documentation released so far in this post, it would appear that in order to avoid slashing conditions sequencer operators must focus on the primary areas:

1. High uptime, connectivity & availability;
2. Maintaining access to keys + backups; and
3. A commitment to maintaining sequencing status quo.

In order to address number one and two, Pier Two would approach the sequencer operation with as much load balanced infrastructure as possible and a focus on key security as already mentioned above in the SLA section. To address number 3, Pier Two would commit to not ordering transactions maliciously or modify the sequencer code in any way that extracts value or isn’t aligned with the Metis DAO’s mandate (e.g. collusion with MEV traders).

Deployment Roadmap

After being successfully voted in to support Metis we will operate on the DAO’s suggested timeline. But the basic steps would be to

1. Deployment Phase: Start running the Sequencer node and acquire the minimum 20,000 METIS. This will include registering our sequencer details once up and running.
2. Testing Phase: Engage in comprehensive testing of the Sequencer node in coordination with the Metis team to ensure compliance with all technical requirements and security standards. This will include adding any relevant monitoring and alerting around the Metis Sequencer - including the recommended prometheus exporter paired with Grafana.
3. Launch: Officially commence operations as a Sequencer Node following successful.
4. Ongoing Monitoring and Optimisation: Continuous monitoring of node performance with periodic updates and optimisations as needed to maintain optimal efficiency and security.

Vote Pier Two

Official Links

• Website: https://piertwo.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/PierTwo_com
• Github: https://github.com/Pier-Two