PowerLoom Protocol: Evolution of PoCs & Launch of Overview Document
In the last post, we unveiled a PoC to initiate the Phase 1 launch of PowerLoom Protocol. It includes several engineering components that are to be reused as the foundation for similar PoCs to be released under the Phase 1 plan. These PoCs will continue to focus on forks and variations of AMMs(Automated MarketMaker) like Uniswap v2, as well as v3.
Long time readers of our engineering blog would have noticed the growth in complexity of these PoCs, beginning from the small scale audits run on Gitcoin Grants, moving up to tracking trading activity on Polymarket prediction markets.
We had to engineer several frameworks in between to come up with a generalized, robust, scalable yet light weight single node solution that would be able to
- capture the essentials of state transition of data in smart contracts
- store raw snapshots of state transitions as well as aggregated datapoints atop comparisons built from these snapshots with a high availability on decentralized storage protocols, beginning with IPFS
- maintain open, decentralized indexes atop the chronological chain of snapshots
- run automated verification mechanisms in step with snapshots that check the integrity and mathematical correctness of snapshot chains as well as higher order aggregated data points built on them, for eg, trade volume of a Uniswap pool contract over 24 hours.
PowerLoom Protocol Overview Document: Section Walkthrough
Our approach is rooted in fundamental tenets of Computer Science, formal logic and data engineering. It has taken a little over a year for us to formalize this approach with a core group of engineers and we are opening up this document to the rest of the world. You can jump straight to the good stuff on our public Notion doc or continue reading here to better grok the way the document is structured.
1. Abstract and motivation
PowerLoom Protocol was born out of a period of deep work put into participating in global hackathons as well astraining and mentoring cohorts to participate in the same. These experiences, along with the founders’ prior learnings from scaling managed blockchain API services to 1 billion requests/day, formed some of the powerful driving motivators behind the envisioning of PowerLoom Protocol. It was becoming more apparent with every passing day that we need truly decentralized solutions when it comes to ensuring the right to meaningful information atop blockchain applications, especially De(centralized)Fi(nance) protocols which have a complex graph of interactions and money flows.
The rise in the popularity of DAOs, automated markets and other ‘code-as-law’ paradigms in the last half a decade have been quietly laying the grounds for democratizing access to power of computing and information. We atttempt to make the point in the sections linked below that a software entity need not be centralized and closed off behind prohibitive subscription costs to majority of the world population. Instead we can do better, empower cleaner access to accurate data while generating profits for all stakeholders involved.
Quick links
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2. Foundations of the PowerLoom Protocol: Initial PoCs and formalization of data collection and higher order information generation
These next sections zooms in from a purely conceptual, idealized version of the founding vision behind PowerLoom to a somewhat concretized architectural specification. These were a result of learnings from iterating over multiple data sources and attempting to generalize a framework for capturing raw state data living on blockchain smart contracts and generate higher order information that makes sense to humans.
The quickest way to validate out our thesis was to design a ‘standalone system’ that would not require to participate in a peer network right away to validate its data capture and information generation, yet can be lightweight enough to be independently run by most operators with access to mid sized computing instances. We deliberately steered clear of the bloat of containerization, orchestration and other cloud vendor specific scaling strategies that have become the norm. Instead we relied on low level systems programming primitives to ensure this framework could withstand the data processing demands for one of the largest DeFi protocols around, Uniswap v2.
Quick links
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3. Complete implementation of a standalone system to generate information on Uniswap v2 markets
This section starts off with a functional overview of the moving parts that come together to form a single node within a PowerLoom Protocol data market for an Automated MarketMaker like Uniswap v2.
The components included in this PoC are supposed to be an exhaustive prototype when it comes to the interaction between the three major participants proposed for the PowerLoom Protocol DAO: snapshotters, validators and consumers.
The sections on building of snapshots on smart contract data, indexing & higher order information generation give an insight into the way snapshotters can participate in the protocol in varying capacities. They can participate in just contributing to the raw snapshots on select ranges of blockheights on a single or multiple smart contract(s), they can also pick up the heavy stuff on calculating time series indexes as well as performing lambdas on the indexes like mapping and aggregation, filtering etc.
The components that validate the integrity of DAG chain of snapshots as well as the accuracy of higher order aggregates and filters will develop into full fledged peers that participate in the network as validators.
Quick links
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Since our last post on this blog, we launched another PoC that generates insights and analytics on SushiSwap running on the Ethereum mainnet.
We will soon be announcing the next steps in our roadmap to decentralization which will include information on onboarding partners onto the initial scaffolds of PowerLoom Protocol’s decentralized data economy. Stay tuned!
Also, did we mention we are looking for talented engineers in multiple fields of specialization to join us? If the prospect of working on bleeding edge stuff at the intersection of diverse technical as well as non-technical fields like Web3 tools/frameworks/protocols, decentralized/distributed systems, game theory, cryptoeconomics, DeFi(decentralized finance) etc gets you excited, go ahead and apply on our AngelList jobs board or shoot us a mail at careers@powerloom.io
