ink!Hub Treasury Proposal
Hey Builders!
Full Proposal
This proposal represents a strategic opportunity to collaborate with Astar Network, AlephZero, and Phala Network on ink! tooling.
We are excited to submit our proposal to the Polkadot Treasury for the development of Swanky, a comprehensive developer tooling solution designed to facilitate and streamline ink! (Rust) smart contract development within the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. Drink! aims to provide support for ink! developers. It comes in two parts: 1. Drink library, which provides a minimal Substrate runtime allowing for ink! contracts development, together with a facade interface for interacting with it. 2. drink-cli command line tool, which puts Drink behind a friendly TUI. Our goal is to attract new developers to this space by simplifying the process of starting and managing projects.
This proposal aims to claim funding from the Polkadot Treasury for work on the Swanky Suite tool, Drink! Tool, ink! examples, and educational content in the period from September 2023 to February 2024.
To ensure transparency and accountability, we propose a task-based approach to funding. Our roadmap clearly outlines each stage of ink!Hub's development, with defined objectives and deliverables. Funding will be released upon the successful completion of each task (and after review and approval through Multisig), demonstrating tangible progress and value to the Polkadot community.
We value your feedback on the roadmap, which we've already shared with the Astar community on the:
Comments (9)
Requested
Proposal Passed
Hi,
Thank you for the proposal.
We have a few questions:
— Can you please share more detail regarding the demand for the project deliverables?
— As this is a proposal with three parties - can you please share more details on how the project will be managed? How would potential disputes be handled between the parties in connection with project delivery?
— This is a complex project, and we suspect that it will require additional funding. What do ongoing maintenance costs look like, and do you plan to submit a subsequent treasury proposal?
— Does this project have a path to sustainability?
— Separately, we have heard (please debunk if this is not true) that at least one of the three parties in this proposal is in the process of migrating away from Polkadot. Is this true? If so, we are concerned about this introducing delivery risk.
Best, Ivy
@Ivy, Hello! Apologies for the delayed response.
— Can you please share more detail regarding the demand for the project deliverables? Answer: That's a valid question. We've been tracking and conversing with numerous teams on this. Concerning the Swanky tool, we discussed and provided feedback on the Roadmap with our ecosystem projects on the Astar Forum: https://forum.astar.network/t/swanky-roadmap-open-discussion/4801. Additionally, as one of the metrics, Astar participated in 4-5 hackathons this year, and most of the projects utilized Swanky. (I can share the names of these projects privately; please message me on Telegram at @Toma_Cpp).
— As this is a proposal involving three parties, can you share more details on project management? How would potential disputes between the parties concerning project delivery be resolved? Answer: From our experience with Ink!ubator, having a dedicated facilitator or manager is essential to maintain progress and ensure successful delivery, so we've factored in these costs. The role of the manager will be to oversee the team, ensure timely reports, and meet deadlines. If one of the parties is preoccupied and unable to complete certain tasks, they can be transferred to the other two teams. This flexibility is a primary reason we chose task-based payments.
— Given the complexity of this project, we anticipate additional funding might be required. What do ongoing maintenance costs look like, and do you plan to submit another treasury proposal? Answer: Initially, we plan to report the progress to the community and gather feedback. Decisions regarding future Treasury grants will be based on that. However, in general, we aim to establish a robust narrative around ink!Hub and persist in contributing to the project regardless of the circumstances.
— Does this project have a path to sustainability? Answer: From Astar's perspective, the principle is straightforward: have you heard of Truffle or Hardhat? They are toolsets for building dapps that nearly everyone utilizes. While Polkadot developed ink!, there's no integrated tool for building atop it, barring the compiler, of course. Astar has been developing Swanky for over a year, completely self-funded. Although it's a fully functional tool now, a comprehensive set is still under development, demanding significant work and maintenance. Astar cannot shoulder this responsibility alone, so collaborating with other projects offers a unique opportunity. Without tools like these, no dapp developer will genuinely be interested in ink! or, more broadly, smart contracts on Polkadot.
— We've heard (please correct us if this isn't accurate) that at least one of the three parties in this proposal is considering migrating away from Polkadot. Is this true? If so, we're concerned about potential delivery risks. Answer: Speaking for Astar, we've recently secured the parachain slot for the upcoming two years. So, we're wholeheartedly committed to Polkadot.
https://twitter.com/AstarNetwork/status/1697489515240431696?t=GAWBZ594oN8dCVAzjdAP7A&s=19
I hope this provides clearer insight. Please don't hesitate to ask further questions; we're here to help!
Absolutely Aye! Ink! is super exciting and we need to support the tooling around it as much as possible. We at RMRK are very excited to review and finalise RMRK NFT implementation of Ink! smart contracts that Astar team built almost single handedly, and better tooling is absolutly necessary for the adoption
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