Project Showcase: BlockPI

In this regular series, we showcase projects that are currently participating in the Interchain Builders Program. Today we have an interview with Albert He, BlockPI Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of BlockPI.

What is BlockPI?

Albert: BlockPI is a distributed multi-chain acceleration layer, providing high-performance and reliable RPC services for Web3. Our goal is to provide safe, robust, high-performance infrastructure services in a decentralized way.

The distributed network structure can ensure a low latency and robust RPC service. Meanwhile, it provides better privacy for individual users and dApps.

BlockPI aims to improve the infrastructure of the decentralized Web3 ecosystem. The motivation behind BlockPI is the recognition that while many applications in the industry are decentralized, their underlying infrastructure often remains centralized. This can lead to problems such as data privacy issues and service outages, which can leave users unable to interact with their digital assets​​.

BlockPI’s vision is to build a scalable and robust Web3 infrastructure in the form of an RPC (Remote Procedure Call) service network. RPC is a protocol that one program can use to request a service from a program located in another computer on a network without understanding the network’s details. In this context, it’s used for interaction between web3 users and decentralized applications or between different decentralized applications.

How Does It Work?

Albert: BlockPI provides RPC services for users based on a decentralized architecture. Third-party node operators run HyperNodes providing RPC or other data services. Users send requests to Gateways. The Gateway checks the user’s authority and dispatches the requests to HyperNodes through BlockPI Load Balancer. HyperNode processes the requests and sends them back to the Gateway and therefore delivered to the user.

At the start of the project, BlockPI will provide most of the nodes, but the goal is for the network to become fully scalable by adding self-owned RPC nodes from wallets, exchanges, dApps, and third-party RPC providers. These participants are incentivized to join the BlockPI Network, as doing so can increase the maximum availability of RPC requests without needing to continuously rent servers for peak demand. Instead, they would only pay fees for extra inflow usage on-demand.

Participants with idle capacity can also earn by providing outflow RPC requests using their redundant resources. From a broader perspective, the BlockPI Network aims to smoothen out fluctuations in RPC request loads across the entire network, thereby improving resource utilization and providing infinite scalability.

Users buy RUs (Request Units) from the BlockPI Protocol. Different numbers of RU in the user’s account will be deducted with different RPC method usage. BlockPI Protocol will distribute the income from users to the service providers based on their work respectively.

Why did you choose the Interchain Stack?

Albert: We had a discussion internally for some time on which ecosystem to deploy the protocol. Finally, after careful consideration, we decided to deploy the appchain on the Cosmos SDK. The biggest concern was developer-friendliness. The Cosmos SDK provides a developer-friendly environment with extensive documentation, a growing community, and various tools to simplify the blockchain development process. It abstracts complex underlying protocols and enables developers to focus on building rather than reinventing the wheel.

Other than that, Cosmos SDK also gives us the opportunity to interact with other chains in the interchain. We don’t have this need right now, but we need to have the possibility.

What stage is the project in?

Albert: BlockPI’s current stage is Alpha-net. The network structure of HyperNode is already decentralized. In the testnet last year, we opened the HyperNode permissionless joining and the network structure is verified to be efficient. We have not yet opened to third-party in Alpha-net concerning the current market situation. We will do this when the income for the nodes can cover their expenses. This would happen within two to three months as our customer base keeps increasing.

Our latest work involves integrating account abstraction bundler clients into the BlockPI network and providing bundler services, which will be available online in the next one or two weeks. We have long recognized the significance of AA and see the market value it will bring to the BlockPI.

How is the Builders Program supporting you?

Albert: The program allows us to learn blockchain technology and interchain technology from scratch. Although we have been working in the blockchain infrastructure industry for many years, the program helped us fill in some gaps in our knowledge. Additionally, we started learning interchain from scratch and gained a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the architecture and ecosystem of interchain. We now have a basic understanding of how to build our own Cosmos SDK appchain in the interchain.

What are you looking forward to?

Albert: We want to try to build a chain to process the RU system and the native token of BlockPI in our BlockPI Protocol architecture, making the whole protocol decentralized. In the program, we learned related knowledge and did a small amount of practice. We hope to have the opportunity to continue receiving guidance from the advisor moving forward. We can imagine that there will definitely be problems and difficulties when that time comes.

The Interchain Builders Program provides mentorship and guidance for Web3 founders looking to navigate the interchain. We help teams with incorporation strategies, fundraising, token economic design, technical support, validator bootstrapping and going to market. If you’re a founder looking to build on top of the Interchain Stack, we encourage you to apply to the program now!

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