Polkawatch completes web3 foundation grant
Polkawatch provides decentralization analytics for Polkadot and potentially for any blockchain built on the Substrate framework.
Polkawatch is a project supported by the Web3 Foundation and was part of the Wave 13 of the grants program.
We covered the motivation behind creating a decentralization analytics platform for Polkadot and showcased some of the available data when Polkawatch was introduced last month.
In this post we would like to cover the technology behind Polkawatch and what it brings to the Polkadot ecosystem.
Polkawatch Delivery
Polkawatch benefits from the rich Substrate ecosystem and builds on top of other community assets: the substrate archive node and substrate indexer.
The substrate indexer is used to extract canonical blockchain events from the archive node and put them in a workable format: SQL.
Polkawatch runs a second-pass indexing that traces relationships between canonical events and complements them with external data sources such as GeoIP databases. The second pass indexing is delivered as a Lucene inverted index which is easy and efficient in terms of implementing complex real time analytics over the dataset.
Polkawatch provides a Live Query Server that allows for analytic queries to be run over the inverted index in real time.
Polkawatch also provides a Distributed Data Packaging solution that allows for the distribution of analytics over IPFS, bundled with a visual DAPP:
Polkawatch.app is currently in production and delivering decentralization analytics about Polkadot. The dataset is distributed as a DDP updated daily and can be browsed with a DAPP.
For additional details about the technology stack visit the polkawatch gitlab page.
Next Steps
We plan to deliver Decentralization analytics for Kusama with support for newly released staking pools.
Some parachain projects have also reached out seeking to introduce decentralization analytics for their collator operation too.
We will continue to use decentralization as the main use case for analytics. However, we foresee parachain project interest in other analytics related to the nature of the parachain itself.
Contributing to the Polkadot Ecosystem
With Polkawatch, the community can now see the decentralization status of the blockchain as well as their own contribution to decentralization.
The Polkadot Rely Chain can now visualize the status of decentralization and motivate operators to cover regions and/or network operators to balance network resources.
Validators can ask for nominator support as they pioneer new regions.
Nominators can also see the impact of their nomination in the overall decentralization of the blockchain.
In the near future parachains will also be able to assess the level of decentralization of their collators.
Accessing Polkawatch
Polkawatch can be accessed at polkawatch.app .
About
Polkadot is a scalable sharded chain and the first protocol that provides a secure environment for cross-chain composability across multiple shards. Polkadot also introduces a highly advanced, open governance system that will allow the network to innovate and grow at a much faster pace than legacy networks. Applications from DeFi to energy to gaming will thrive on Polkadot, challenging the centralized platforms of Web 2.0.
Web3 Foundation funds research and development teams building the technology stack of the decentralized web. It was established in Zug, Switzerland by Ethereum co-founder and former CTO Gavin Wood. Polkadot is the Foundation's flagship project.
Valletech AB, the developer behind Polkawatch, is a Product Development Lab that helps customers innovate Software Products that nicely fit into leading OperSource stacks, including latest Web 3 technologies.