Osmosis Ecosystem Spotlight: REStake
The Osmosis DEX suite is growing exponentially, and it can be hard to keep track of all the teams building exciting new features. This series of Ecosystem Spotlights allows you to get to know the teams in their own words (lightly edited). To see more, check out our other posts or the Osmosis Ecosystem website.
What is REStake?
REStake.app is an auto-compounding tool built by the validator ECO Stake to take advantage of the relatively new (Aug. ’21) Cosmos SDK module, authz, with which one wallet can authorize another to carry out certain actions on its behalf. More authz delegation features are constantly being added to REStake, such as vote delegation, for which ECO Stake recently received a grant from the Osmosis Grants Program.
Why is it important? How did it come to be?
While authz was in development, it became obvious that its first use would be auto-compounding, and that validators such as myself (ECO Stake) would want to provide this service to their delegators. I therefore built REStake as a public good: an open-source auto-compounder that includes all active-set validators on their various chains. The REStake code can therefore be checked by anyone, and it also serves as a reference implementation for other developers in the ecosystem.
Having a public-good implementation has made it unnecessary for each validator to release a separate tool to compete for auto-compounding delegations, a scenario that would create confusing, annoying UX for end-users. Additionally, by creating a single source of truth for validator bot addresses, it simplifies the development work for any application that wants to implement re-staking.
REStake is continuously evolving to provide various wallet management functionalities, with full authz support for most wallet actions. This means that users can easily create their own authz strategies in the UI. For example, it has greatly simplified how I vote and claim rewards on behalf of multiple wallets.
This is my general approach to building in this ecosystem — if I need it, I build it and open the source code for anyone. Cosmos exists because of incredible open source tooling, it makes sense to continue this trend with everything we build.
How does it work?
For end users, the process is simple. From the web UI, they can click on the chain they want to work with, and if they connect Keplr, it will auto-fill in their validators and the amount staked with each. They can then click (per validator) to authorize the grant of powers to REStake, which you can limit by total amount of OSMO and by calendar date. After that, they can manage the grant, with the option to cancel it at any time.
Under the hood, the performance of the auto-compounding is achieved by “operators” running bots that automate the transactions. The vast majority of these operators are the validators themselves. It is in their interest to run the bots, since they can then attract and retain more delegations by offering auto-compounding through REStake.
Are there any risks to delegating to REStake with authz?
With another app or the command line, it could be possible to authz away your wallet to a malicious user. However, this is not possible with REStake because it only allows delegation transactions, and it is restricted per validator. For further safety and control, you can set the max amount to be auto-compounded as well as an expiry time.
II. Team
What is your origin story? What got you into crypto and DeFi?
Right now, I (Tom) am the only person involved in ECO Stake, although I have off-hours support available from some close associates. I have been a developer, dev-ops lead, and CTO for the last 15 years, working with agencies initially and more recently a couple of startups in the fintech and broadcast industries.
I have been in and out of crypto since 2014, but in 2020 I found Cosmos and decided to dedicate more time to the industry. My strength is primarily in software engineering and application development, particularly apps that integrate multiple tools to create something new. Cosmos was a turning point in crypto for me; as a software developer the idea of monolithic chains like Ethereum just didn’t make sense. The hub and spoke model of Cosmos was an immediate selling point, and the idea that IBC would connect all these chains was really eye-opening.
For me, crypto is all about the opportunity to do something different in a world that seems to be on a path of self destruction. I’ve been pretty demoralized with our governments and general approach to furthering the human race, and the first thing that attracted me to crypto was the chance (however remote) to take back some semblance of control and create a new narrative. For this reason, it’s important to me to be doing something good in the world, however small, and to be building tools that further the ecosystem and open up new possibilities.
III. Building on Osmosis
What attracted you to Osmosis?
Osmosis has been a core part of my introduction to this ecosystem. It was my second validator after Akash, and Osmosis was the first chain I released on REStake.app. While we focus on building for the entire interchain, Osmosis is the core of the current Cosmos ecosystem, and is typically up to date with the latest features. For this reason it has been the perfect chain to focus on, and was the homepage for REStake.app for a long time.
How do you see yourself developing within the Osmosis ecosystem?
I’m extremely excited about the future of authz, we’re at such an early stage of it’s development and I can already see the direction it’s going to take. I can’t wait to see more advanced type-specific grants like the existing staking authorization REStake makes heavy use of. We have some very exciting features coming up around governance (see below) that could benefit from some more advanced grant types in the future. Authz is such a game-changer, and we have not even begun to tap into its full power. We can scarcely imagine some of the applications that will be created using it.
IV. Token / Governance
Which features of your app require governance, if any?
REStake is off-chain and open-source, so its governability is the ability for others to fork it and change the parameters. However, we are working to improve Osmosis governance as a whole. Over the next 3 months, we will be developing the Governors feature for REStake, which will allow community members to provide authz governance voting on behalf of other users.
These “Governors” will be listed in the REStake UI with their vote history and detailed profiles, and users will be able to authorise a Governor to vote on governance proposals on their behalf. This feature creates an entirely new subset of users who can be heavily involved in governance decisions, and could take some pressure off validators as currently the only “delegated vote” implementation in Cosmos. I am not sure what will happen with this feature, but I’m very excited to find out!
V. Roadmap & Additional Features
What is the timeline for the features you’ve already described?
The REStake app is already live. The “Governors” project will take approximately three months, so it should be live by the beginning of November, if not before.
What are your plans for next steps, additional features, etc.?
Generally, new features are being added to REStake every week. We USE Restake heavily, and if anything could work better, or new features could be added, rest assured they will be. REStake is a passion project; I love building it and I love that it’s been so useful to so many people. I want to continue taking advantage of new and exciting Authz features, and continue developing the application as the wider Cosmos ecosystem develops.
