[Proposal] Funding Mintscan

[Mintscan]

Change Log

• 2023-09-04 Initial post submitted

Summary

The objective of this proposal is to seek community pool funding for the future integrations, enhancements, continued development, and maintenance of Mintscan. Mintscan is requesting funding of 320,000 ATOM for the provision of its advanced interchain portal and data analytics service for the Cosmos Hub and its replicated security chains. The ATOM will be sent to a 10 year vesting account with a 5 year lock, no cliff, followed by a 5 year linear unlock. This funding will allow the Mintscan team to sustainably provide further customizations and state-of-the-art user experience, catering to the technological advancements of the Cosmos Hub and evolving needs of the Cosmos Hub community. The proposal includes upcoming tasks and developments related to the Cosmos roadmap including the integration of all RS chains on Mintscan.

Background

Cosmos has been the bedrock of innovation where novel ideas are born and first experimented on, as can be seen by the proliferation of the ‘app chain’ thesis and many other experiments that originated from Cosmos and reiterated in external ecosystems. The Cosmos technology stack has matured remarkably in the past five years, positioning the Cosmos Hub as one of the most vibrant, trusted, and robust ecosystems in this rapidly evolving domain. This growth is a testament to the dedication of many core organizations and contributors.

However, there is a lot of competition with external ecosystems when it comes to onboarding new projects and users. We must make Cosmos more competitive and coherently and attractively amplify this to our diversified audience. To foster this continued growth and to ensure that the intricacies of our complex ecosystem are accessible and comprehensible to everyone, it is essential that we provide a clear, coherent, and data-driven roadmap for Cosmos. This is where Mintscan contributes.

As a dedicated tool, Mintscan has been at the forefront, offering tailored support and detailed onchain visibility that reflect the depth of the Cosmos ecosystem. Mintscan has been agile with its integrations, keeping pace with newly developed modules and functionalities while ensuring an uninterrupted and reliable service during the entire lifetime of Cosmos Hub since genesis.

The purpose of this funding proposal is to support future development of Mintscan as the go-to interchain portal and amplify its capabilities for the Cosmos Hub and replicated security chains. By refining its data analytics, Mintscan seeks to cater to developers, traders, institutions, and a broader user base, enhancing our outreach and helping increase mindshare from external ecosystems. Several other important objectives including Mintscan API and Mintscan Dashboard are specified in the milestones below.

Team History

Mintscan is the go-to portal for chains built with the Cosmos SDK, currently serving 58 mainnets as virtually the official explorer trusted by foundations, exchanges, and dapps. The first iteration of Mintscan was released during the Game of Stakes, the monumental incentivized testnet prior to Cosmos Hub genesis. Since 2019, we have dedicated our time to continuously improving our UI/UX and feature offerings through countless cycles of community feedback and development.

First blog post announcing the launch of Mintscan: https://medium.com/cosmostation/were-launching-some-cool-things-for-the-cosmos-hub-mainnet-dc9eab56be4a

As a public good service for the Cosmos Hub community, we have been fortunate to grow our user base and enhance the product as the ecosystem evolved over the years. Catering to this growth, we have vastly expanded our infrastructure and operate multiple sets of specialized databases to maintain an enterprise-level service that is reliable.

A detailed overview of our data infrastructure can be found in this blog post: https://medium.com/cosmostation/mintscan-enterprise-level-data-infrastructure-137ae350f35b

With our unwavering commitment to the Cosmos Hub since genesis, we plan to dedicate our time and resources into providing a high quality interchain portal service in par with the technological advancements of the hub–integrating future customizations and module developments, and furthermore a complete data analytics platform, an API service, and search engine for the Cosmos Hub and replicated security chains.

Until today, Mintscan has never been funded by the Interchain Foundation or the Cosmos Hub. Through this proposal, we are asking for support from the Cosmos Hub community to help sustain our continued contribution and future milestones.

Milestones

Below are tasks and specific milestones we aim to achieve.

Goals

• Enhance onchain data accessibility and visibility for Cosmos
• Integrate new Cosmos Hub features, modules, and functionalities
• Provide enhanced Cosmos data analytics for a wider audience
• Add all current and upcoming replicated security chains
• Improve Cosmos developer experience with advanced API services
• Optimize database and performance for enhanced user experience
• Allow users to directly interact with the Hub and RS chains via the portal
• Further develop Mintscan into a comprehensive portal for Cosmos
• 24/7 customer support and monitoring

Tasks

• Replicated Security
  • Support for all Cosmos Hub RS chains
• IBC functionalities
  • Enhanced IBC relayer status and information
  • Listing of IBC assets
• Cosmos Hub Module/Feature Integrations
  • Integration of new features in accordance to the Cosmos Hub roadmap
  • Integration of relevant new modules, transactions, and functionalities
• Wallet Dashboard
  • Add functionality to connect wallet directly to Mintscan
  • Comprehensive dashboard to allow user to manage assets
  • Make transactions including delegation, reward claiming, etc.
  • Interact with dapps connected to the Cosmos Hub
• Data Analytics
  • Improve data depth to provide richer set of analytics
  • Provide enhanced analytics for institutions, traders, protocols, users
• Mintscan API
  • API service for the Cosmos Hub and replicated security chains
  • Premium API service for all purposes
  • Historical data
  • Build transactions (protobuf builder)
• UI/UX Enhancements/Optimization
  • Active community engagement for UI/UX enhancements
  • Simplify and optimize UI for better accessibility
• Database Optimization
  • Improved speed/performance
  • Enhanced search engine
• Continued Maintenance
  • Performance maintenance/optimization
  • Bug fixes and troubleshooting
• Customer Support
  • 24/7 support staff
  • Feedback channel

Milestones: GitHub - cosmostation/mintscan-milestones

Funding & Execution Details

Mintscan will receive community pool spend of 320,000 ATOM to the following multisig account comprising of the following members:

Address: TBD

Multisig: TBD

Then, the ATOM will be transferred to the following 10 year vesting account (5 year lock, no cliff, followed by a 5 year linear unlock from 0% to 100% of the tokens) owned by Mintscan.

Address: TBD

The funding requested for this grant proposal amounts to 320,000 ATOM, approximately equal to around 2,220,000 USD at the current price. This amount stems from an exhaustive appraisal of the costs imperative for accomplishing the aforementioned tasks. It includes expenses related to development resources, infrastructure maintenance, community support, and ongoing improvements to ensure the persistent development and long-term sustainability of Mintscan.

Governance Votes

The following items describe the voting options and their significance for this proposal:

• YES: You wish to fund Mintscan 320,000 ATOM via the community pool to a 10 year vesting account. Mintscan will use this community pool spend to help fund its continued development and maintenance, along with future roadmaps including feature additions, Mintscan API, Data Analytics, Mintscan Dashboard, and more for the Cosmos Hub.
• NO: You do not wish to fund Mintscan via this community pool spend proposal.
• NO WITH VETO: You 1) Consider this proposal to be spam, 2) Believe it infringes on minority interests, or 3) Believe it violates the rules of engagement as currently set out by Cosmos Hub governance. If the number of NoWithVeto votes is greater than a third of total votes, the proposal is rejected and the deposits are burned.
• ABSTAIN: You wish to contribute to quorum but you formally decline to vote either for or against the proposal.

[tom]

this funding should be divided into multiple fundings from the chains you’ve already integrated.

maybe the hub CP should fund a bigger part than others, but it still doesn’t have to pay the whole imo, since the development is/will be benefiting the broader ecosystem.

beside that, could we get some numbers about the yearly earnings you make from the delegations you ask to the chains for them to be integrated?

[freak12techno]

While appreciating Mintscan explorer and recognizing its contribution to the ecosystem, I am quite sceptical of this proposal in its current form.

Firstly, as far as I know, Mintscan should have a lot of funding from all the chains Cosmostation is validating, and it’s totally unclear how much tokens does the team earn from that. So the idea of getting more tokens while the amount earned from validators might cover the development and maintenance is questionable for me.

Second, there’s no report in the current form of this proposal on how much Cosmostation is earning, how much is required for development, how much is the cost of any feature planned to be integrated later and where did this 320k ATOM number came from. There was a bash on Notional for not having the detailed numbers in proposal 104 (see this [Proposal ##][DRAFT] Cancel Proposal 104), so not providing any justification for this number would likely result in the similar outcome.

Third, it’s not clear which period of development does this 320k ATOM sum cover. The proposal says it’s gonna be a vesting account for 10 years, but this doesn’t answer which period does the requested sum cover. We want to avoid the case where the team comes up with another community pool spend proposal in let’s say a year, don’t we?

Fourth, while there’s a list of features that are planned to be integrated, which is really nice, there’s no estimation on these features and their release dates, having a more detailed roadmap with every feature listed is lacking here (and also see my second point for justification of the requested amount, as it’s a bit related to this point).

Fifth, why asking for a 10 year vesting? It’s quite a big period, and in my opinion, it would be wise to split this proposal into a bunch of smaller ones, like @tom suggested, this way the community would have a better way of verifying that the team delivers what they promised.

Sixth, why not applying for an ICF grant instead of asking for a community pool spend? (I am probably lacking some knowledge here, would be nice to get a clarification here).

So with the current form of this proposal, I’d personally vote “no”, while I appreciate the input of this explorer, I think there’s a lot of details that can and should be provided before having that big community pool spend.

[jagachu]

The application amount for this proposal is really huge.

The best way for this case is to apply to ATOM Accelerator. An authoritative review agency will conduct a comprehensive review of the proposed amount.

[whitemarlin]

Considering the fact that this has a 5 year lock, I think it is prudent to look at the request in terms of All-time high prices and % of supply.

At all time high prices this request is for $10+M and represents 0.08% of the total supply of Atom. This would be the #125 largest wallet on the network funded completely by investors and the investors would not receive any equity stake in your product. Perhaps you could do a private sale? I would be highly interested in buying private equity in your product if you need help fundraising and I am sure many other VCs would be interested as well.

Also it is my understanding that your team requests top delegation from every chain in order to be listed on Mintscan. This resulted in millions of dollars of profit for Mintscan during the bull run. Are you changing models where this top delegation would no longer be required and instead requesting funds?

Also as others pointed out. What exactly is received with this grant? 10 years of service agreement? With all chains without requiring top delegations?

[jacobgadikian]

I am inclined to support this proposal due to the long time horizon that it describes.

For proposal 104, notional wanted to make sure that we ended some of the churn that we felt that the cosmos hub had experienced negatively.

I see the same thing here.

I would like to ask for just one change to the proposal only, which is that you add a cancellation clause so that hub governance can fire you at any time or you can quit at any time.

Actually I think I have a solution which is that you could include the cancel ability only after the cliff is ended and you begin to receive tokens.

So for 5 years, you are just supposed to deliver and you cannot spend any of the tokens.

After that, if the community is dissatisfied with the first 5 years, it can be canceled. If you continue to do the excellent work that you have been doing, it can’t be canceled.

Also since that mechanism could be kind of unfair, I think that it might make sense to discuss mechanisms for cancellability together.

Nonetheless I wish to repeat that I think this is a really good proposal and that I am personally in support, as is notional, once concerns surrounding the product as a public good have been addressed.

[Cryptodeadbeat]

If Mintscan would be truly open to all public goods, this proposal would be more based. As of now, Mintscan is lacking multiple chains and it has looked outside that Mintscan is asking bribery delegations or funds from chains to get seat on the table. I cannot condone this kind of gatekeeping.

Also the lack of chains creates bad user experience for community. Since the proposal funding is asked from the CP, I don’t see the that community is getting the value it deserves for that amount of funding.

[RoboMcGobo]

Will the 320k ATOM be stakeable to the cosmostation validator during the 10 year vesting period?

If so, that’d result in an additional 64k ATOM in revenue per year on top of what Cosmostation gets from existing delegations on the hub (this includes substantial delegations from both the ICF and Stride, as well as presumably other contributing orgs). All of this while diluting staking revenues for other holders of ATOM.

Additionally, Cosmostation has expressed multiple times that its business model for mintscan is to ask for large delegations from foundations for integration, and use the staking revenues to maintain the explorer. AFAIK, you’ve already received such a delegation for the Cosmos Hub.

That business model is perfectly fine, but for an ask of this size I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask Cosmostation for an itemized list of its operating costs (specifically allocated to the Hub and not the other 50+ chains Cosmostation receives revenue from) and a statement of why those costs aren’t adequately covered by existing delegation revenues.

[luisqa]

The only way you can justify the mintscan model of extorting top validator status was because you specifically didn’t ask for funding from chains.

Now you requesting $2-3M for developing an explorer is ridiculous and the fact that you come to the community is because AADAO already rejected this ridiculous ask.

Mintscan 2.0 has been a huge step back already and I think we should be focusing the ecosystem into funding more sustainable products like ping.pub and other explorers.

[kopeboy]

Isn’t Mintscan benefiting from this development? Since Mintscan is not a property of ATOM holders, why should we finance it entirely? If this is just a part of the cost estimation, I would like to see all of it, in full transparency together with Mintscan’s company (or DAO?) finances, at least regarding past development expenses until now and current & planned revenue sources.
This is a big amount, standards must be set high.

[syndicatemike]

Point 1: I understand it’s important to fund public goods like Mintscan. I think the atom should be used for other funding methods such as applications and focusing on ICS. As someone who does traditional business valuations outside the space, it’s has to be viable for investment to see value back to the hub (company) spending capital for things like this are last on the boat, most viable spends should be toward core value which generates revenue for Atom. I have yet to see many that do, you can have the best tech in the world but if it isn’t profitable then why fund it?

Point 2: Mintscan already collects so much by having chains delegate to their validator this is a clear conflict of interest, I appreciate the ask but we can’t keep spending other people’s money for public goods that already have a business model. No free lunches anymore. Sorry, as Simon Cowell says, it’s a no from me!

Final Thought: This shouldn’t make it it governance. You’re a business figure out a way to generate revenue and quit asking for handouts.

[Wunderbernd]

ATOM spending should focus on the AEZ at this point. You can’t continue to spend like crazy for random things, especially during this bear market. First we have to focus on generating real yield/income.

[PostTenebras]

There is simply no reason to consider a fixed 10 year funding deal in an industry as fast-paced and volatile as crypto.

Funding requests should be specific, transparent, acute, milestone-based, and justified by supporting analysis.

This funding request here is vague, ambiguous, lacks any supporting analysis, and is far too distant timewise. What will be done with the ATOM? Why was this amount chosen? Why 10 years? What are the concrete deliverables and schedule? What are the operating costs of Mintscan? Why are their validators and substantial delegations not sufficient for their business? And so on.

If Mintscan wishes to sell software development services to the Cosmos Hub community (to the tune of several million dollars), I would expect a much more professional funding proposal with specific concrete deliverables, milestones, milestone date estimates, milestone-based funding tranches, KPIs, team size and role details, etc. This is an industry standard expectation for software development projects.

[Zed_Erazer]

Why should the Hub pick up the bill for this ? Mintscan is a ‘public good’. Shouldn’t the funding come from organizations like ICF ? Even if not the ICF, shouldn’t all other chains that get value from Mintscan foot the total bill ?

The Hub community pool should be focused on developing the AEZ. It can contribute partially to public good - but it should not be the Hub that alone funds public goods from now on.

Besides all of that, Mintscan already requires all chains it provides its services to delegate a significant amount to its validator. Isn’t that enough to maintain a block explorer ? They even removed Kujira from the explorer because they didn’t delegate to them.

Where are these numbers coming from ? Asking for funding without providing proof for expenses is silly. How much have they spent in the last 3 years to maintain Mintscan ?

Bottom line is that they already receive plenty of funding from the requirement of having to provide delegations to them and even if additional funding is necessary ( which I am very skeptical about ), the Hub community pool is not the place to get the funding from.

[waqarmmirza]

Any validator voting yes will lose my respect forever.

Why does every business in the cosmos want to run on community pool expenses? If you can’t make a sustainable business model, leave.

[jacobgadikian]

@waqarmmirza

Well first of all I don’t want mintscan to leave. Understanding is that they are currently funded by delegations to their validator nodes across Cosmos. That’s quite acceptable to me actually, but I guess I do figure it’s better if they go open source.

@Zed_Erazer

Secondly, in order to qualify for funding, it would need to be open source. Proposal 93 dictates that.

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I have used mint scan more times than I can count. Yesterday I kicked off a conversation with @Mikey_Lee & cosmostarion’s CEO around open source.

To my surprise, they’re in favor of it.

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@PostTenebras

This funding request here is vague, ambiguous, lacks any supporting analysis, and is far too distant timewise. What will be done with the ATOM? Why was this amount chosen? Why 10 years? What are the concrete deliverables and schedule? What are the operating costs of Mintscan? Why are their validators and substantial delegations not sufficient for their business? And so on.

These are good questions, I viewed the 10-year timeline as being willing to accept a great deal of risk before taking rewards. How do you see it?

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@kopeboy

Isn’t Mintscan benefiting from this development? Since Mintscan is not a property of ATOM holders, why should we finance it entirely? If this is just a part of the cost estimation, I would like to see all of it, in full transparency together with Mintscan’s company (or DAO?) finances, at least regarding past development expenses until now and current & planned revenue sources.
This is a big amount, standards must be set high.

This is totally reasonable. I began conversations with them yesterday about open sourcing their work.

You also raise a very interesting question about ownership. It might be interesting to actually have a look at the books of this thing as a product and potentially even work out an ownership model where the hub licenses the resulting work.

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@RoboMcGobo

That business model is perfectly fine, but for an ask of this size I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask Cosmostation for an itemized list of its operating costs (specifically allocated to the Hub and not the other 50+ chains Cosmostation receives revenue from) and a statement of why those costs aren’t adequately covered by existing delegation revenues.

Yep, this!

I touched on this item above and I think that it would be very interesting to explore this product as an open business.

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[Zed_Erazer]

Props such as these just highlights how important it is to define the scope and criteria of the community pool funding better.

Whether it is open source or not makes very little difference as long as the amount we are spending is greater than the return for the Hub. From a pure investment perspective, funding this is a bad idea - high expense for very little return.

Again, why is the Hub expected to foot the bill for a public good. Is Hub the only chain using Mintscan ? Where is the funding request to all the other chains currently on Mintscan ?

[Antropocosmist]

I have a question:

Is it possible to delegate funds from the community pool to validator?

In this case, Community Pool will get reward from the Network for delegation, and validator will get commission, and spend this commission to develop tools!

It can be Win-Win solution!

[unerstaking]

This is a joke right? You removed appchains like Kuji from Mintscan and your proprietary wallet because they didn’t delegate to your validator and are now asking for community funding of your project.

[waqarmmirza]

I might be harsh with my earlier comment, but for many reasons;

• Hub shouldn’t pay for all the Appchains.
• Funding ask is huge and vague.
• Crypto market is too bearish to budget on a volatile asset. 230K Atom at ATH would be more than 10 Million USD

I will say no, voto no, campaign for no.

Fun fact, checked with 2 dev teams willing to do what mintscan has done and plans to do in 25% of the ask maintenance included for 10 years.