Author:
- Company: Silo Labs
- Person: Garen Smith
- Email: garen [at] silostaking.io
- Github: username is
silostaking
About You:
- Silo was founded by two second-time founders (technical founder MIT CS/Physics, bd founder has genetics engineering background). We have a small/agile eng team with backgrounds in smart contract (solidity, rust) development, HFT, MEV, and distributed systems.
- We’ve been following bitcoin since 2014 and have been in crypto full-time since 2017. Over that time period we’ve watched blockchain and crypto evolve from a libertarian mission of decentralization and distributed power to a playground of capital markets rip offs, get rich quick schemes, and a growing abandonment of core ideals around why blockchain technology is important.
- We’re committed to making MEV a permanent positive force that helps secure blockchains rather than preys upon their users. Over the next 12 months we’ll be shipping quite a few open source tools to help searchers and reduce the infrastructural advantages of large well-funded searchers and reduce the centralization that a dominant searcher can cause.
Additional Links:
- Founder’s twitters
whammerguygarenBobDeFarmer
- Recent post about some initial tooling we released
Grant Category:
- Other/miscellaneous
Grant Description:
ZeroMEV has served as a critical public good by providing transparency into MEV activities on Ethereum, helping users and protocols understand their exposure to frontrunning and transaction manipulation. With its API services winding down, we propose to revive and enhance this essential infrastructure to continue protecting users and promoting fair markets.
We will revive the ZeroMEV infrastructure and implement new features to create a more comprehensive MEV monitoring solution.
Our team has recently raised venture funding (announcement coming soon) to support the mission of decentralized MEV, so our grant proposal is to revive this and run it at cost rather than for the sake of profiting from the work.
We have quite a few ideas for future improvements to expand the open source functionality and make it more useful for the public, but we’ll cover those in a future post as it is outside the scope of the current work.
Milestones:
| Milestone | Due Date | Payment (18k xDAI) |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure Revival and Data Backfill | 1 month | 6k xDAI |
| Continuous Operation of Publicly Available ZeroMEV | 6 months | 6k xDAI |
| Continuous Operation of Publicly Available ZeroMEV | 6 months | 6k xDAI |
Milestone 1: Infrastructure Revival and Data Backfill (1 month)
For Milestone 1 we will deploy a new instance of ZeroMEV to parity with the existing implementation.
- Deploy core ZeroMEV infrastructure on cloud hosting
- Implement automated data collection pipeline
- Backfill historical MEV data from Ethereum mainnet
- Deploy public API endpoints with documentation
- Set up monitoring and alerting systems
- Deliverables:
- Functioning API instance with complete historical dataset
- Technical documentation for API endpoints
- Public dashboard showing basic MEV statistics
- Initial status report on data completeness and accuracy
Milestone 2: Continuous Operation of Publicly Available ZeroMEV (6 months)
For Milestone 2, we will ensure the continuous operation and availability of the ZeroMEV infrastructure deployed in Milestone 1, maintaining high standards of reliability, accuracy, and accessibility for the Ethereum community.
- Ensure uptime, security updates, and performance optimization for the deployed systems.
- Maintain and verify real-time data collection from Ethereum mainnet and optimize the data pipeline as needed.
- Ensure continuous operation of API endpoints and dashboard.
- Operate monitoring systems to proactively identify and resolve issues.
- Deliverables:
- Stable infrastructure with high uptime.
- Accurate and real-time MEV data.
- Regular performance and data reports.
- Up to date documentation and user tutorials.
Milestone 3: Continuous Operation of Publicly Available ZeroMEV (6 months)
- Same deliverables as milestone 2, for another subsequent 6 months.
Funding Request:
- We’re requesting 18,000 xDAI in total broken into three payments over the next year.
Budget Breakdown:
- The majority of this project’s budget is dedicated to hosting costs, which the original developer of ZeroMev (Pmcgoohan) estimated at ~$12,000 annually (which is the core reason why he had to step back from the project).
- The remaining costs are related to the development costs to deploy, maintain, and support ZeroMEV for the next 12 months.
- Everything quoted in this grant proposal is at cost, we don’t intend to profit from ZeroMev, just make sure there is a solid continuity plan for an important piece of public infrastructure.
- The timing of the payments is such that we’ll pay for the hosting and development out of pocket and be reimbursed after we have successfully maintained the service for the described time period.
Gnosis Chain Address (to receive the grant):
- 0x0077662090776D8e32981Df5cCDBB97F3e8cB2E7
Referral:
- We saw @Middleway.eth’s twitter post about this program and decided to apply after his call to arms to help maintain ZeroMEV.
Terms and Conditions:
By submitting this grant application, I acknowledge and agree to be bound by the CoW DAO Participation Agreement and the CoW Grant Terms and Conditions. In addition to the CoW DAO Participation Agreement and the CoW Grant Terms and Conditions, applicants must adhere to the Completion Timeline Clause.