HackMDUPDATE:
After initially reaching out to many potential partners in the Polkadot ecosystem and getting very positive feedback, we assumed the alignment of our proposal with other projects and the overall Plaza vision would be self evident and sufficient. In hindsight, based on your feedback, the questions and concerns voiced here and in private communication channels, we realized we made a mistake by not including our research work into the initial proposal and should have laid out a lot more details right away.
As always, Playproject takes community feedback (made both publicly and via private channels) very seriously and adapting the proposal to feedback requires to properly research the implications, which is one reason why it took a bit longer to come back.
We have been working to include our research and context, the landscape and technical details to the new version of our proposal as well. We are neither new to Web3, nor Polkadot. We have been actively participating in Polkadot specifically, since our Web3 summit talk in 2019 and over the years have received funding from the Web3 foundation, Bounties and Treasury for various projects. By now, our UX research company accumulated almost a decade of Web3 work experience and contributed to numerous projects. We staff based on project needs and have an extensive network of top talent industry professionals we can source from.
Below we will lay out our updated proposal section by section, starting with an executive summary for each section and the option to dive deeper into the details as well.
We would kindly ask everyone to familiarize themselves with our proposal amendment.
Thank you very much in advance.
PolkaVM Solidity IDE - Project Proposal version 1
Introduction
Solidity is a high-level programming language specifically designed for writing smart contracts. Solidity enables developers to create decentralized applications (DApps) and various other blockchain-based solutions. It is the most widely used language for smart contract development and is pivotal in the creation of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and various other blockchain-based innovations.
Polkadot is advancing its smart contract capabilities with the development of PolkaVM (PVM), a new runtime environment highly compatible with Solidity. Historically, Polkadot has supported the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) through the EVM emulation layer, but PVM aims to enhance performance and provide much higher compatibility than what Solang compiler (compiling to Wasm) can provide. Additionally, with introducing RISC-V based runtime, in the future contracts can also be written in other languages (not only in Solidity).
The Polkadot ecosystem is therefore poised to benefit from a browser-based Solidity editor tailored for the upcoming PolkaVM (PVM). This tool will enable users to compile and deploy smart contracts with a single click, enhancing the developer experience. Additionally, the editor will feature a live, interactive frontend generated from the Solidity ABI, allowing users to seamlessly interact with their contracts.
This proposal has been shared with many community members and we would like to thank them for their contributions and feedback. Special thanks to Cyrill (PVM compiler/Parity), Peter (ink!/Pop network), Kukabi (Helicon), Tommi (OpenGov.watch) and Shawn (Fellowship).
We are looking forward to work on this project with the Parity's pvm compiler team and the Pop network.
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Team
Our team has extensive experience in the blockchain space, particularly with Solidity UX. We were part of the initial team and were contributing to the Ethereum Foundation's Remix IDE for 3 years, ensuring that Solidity features are accessible and developer-friendly. Over those years, we have facilitated prototyping, contract deployment and debugging across local nodes, testnets, and mainnets.
Our expertise extends beyond Remix. We have conducted numerous workshops and talks at prominent conferences such as ETHCC, ETHToronto, Web3 summit, ETH Taipei and Devcon. Additionally, we have provided advisory services to auditing companies and have been involved in research projects, including the DatDot project, which focuses on version-controlled data availability in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Objective
Problem
As new developers join the Polkadot ecosystem, they encounter significant barriers due to the lack of a streamlined, one-click deployment solution for smart contracts on Polkadot. This gap hinders rapid prototyping and testing, which are crucial for developers, auditors, and educators to demonstrate contract functionality effectively.
With the upcoming release of PolkaVM, we need to make sure we enable existing and new Solidity smart contract developers with:
- one click deploy solution for building solidity smart contracts on Polkadot (PVM).
- tooling for quick prototyping and testing of solidity based smart contracts in the Polkadot ecosystem.
- contract creators, auditors and educators easy ways to showcase PVM based smart contracts and their functionality to clients.
It's worth mentioning we discussed our proposal with the PVM smart contract and compiler team at Parity and Pop Network (stewards of ink! smart contracts) and both agreed this is a good project and both are very much open to collaborate with us on it.
Solution
We propose development of a browser-based Solidity editor for PolkaVM that simplifies the process of writing, compiling, and deploying smart contracts. The key features of this solution include the research, implementation and the delivery of:
- Editor and Compiler Integration
- Enhanced Developer Experience (which includes the architecture which will make it easy for other smart contract languages to be integrated down the road)
- Advanced Features
Deliverables, Allocation and Budget
Milestone I: Editor and Compiler Integration
| Task | Research | Design | Frontend | Backend & DevOpsDevOps | Project lead | QA | Total (hours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Develop a robust server to host the PVM compiler | 80 | / | / | 160 | 60 | 80 | 380 |
| Create an intuitive editor for writing and displaying Solidity contracts | 160 | 320 | 480 | 160 | 160 | 1280 | |
| Integrate the compiler to translate Solidity into PVM-compatible bytecode | 40 | 40 | 120 | 120 | 40 | 80 | 440 |
| Parsing matadata.json in order to present it in a user friendly way | 40 | 40 | 80 | 40 | 40 | 240 | |
| Enable one-click deployment to various networks and display the contract address | 160 | 80 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 880 |
Milestone II: Enhanced Developer Experience
| Task | Research | Design | Frontend | Backend & DevOpsDevOps | Project lead | QA | Total (hours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrate Solidity syntax highlighting within the editor | 40 | 40 | 240 | 120 | 40 | 480 | |
| Develop an ABI-based UI widget generator to preview and interact with deployed contracts | 160 | 320 | 320 | 160 | 160 | 1120 | |
| Implement functionality to connect to and interact with already deployed contracts by address | 80 | 80 | 160 | 120 | 80 | 120 | 640 |
Milestone III: Advanced Development Tools
| Task | Research | Design | Frontend | Backend & DevOpsDevOps | Project lead | QA | Total (hours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrate a browser PVM for local deployment and testing | 160 | 160 | 160 | 80 | 160 | 720 | |
| Add a console for transaction logs and debugging | 40 | 120 | 160 | 160 | 80 | 120 | 680 |
| UX research of advanced features (disassembler, debugger, decompiler, contract verification tools, decentralized storage solutions, contract state visualizer, and detailed compiler output) | 420 | 160 | 160 | 80 | 820 |
Future Plans
Beyond the initial milestones, we plan to:
- Integrate support for the Ink! language (and other languages), expanding the editor's versatility.
- Work with 3rd party tooling developers for further enhancing the development experience.
Budget
The funds allocated to the PolkaVM Solidity IDE development team would be utilized strategically to maximize and strengthen the development capabilities and optimize project management
processes.
Apart from the development costs described above, we propose the Treasury to cover costs of other crucial components - including hosting services.
Technical development costs:
- Milestones I, II and III deliverables: 7,680 development hours (8-month execution from August 2024 to including March 2025)
- Hourly rate: 95 USD (87.7 EUR)
Total development costs: 729,600 USD
Infrastructure costs:
- Infrastructure: 5,400 USD / month
Total infrastructure cost (8 months): 43,200 USD
Education expansion:
- Fixed cost: 18,000 USD
Total cost of education materials: 18,000 USD
Total USD: 790,800 USD
- DOT price: 5.67 USD (based on Subscan on June 20, 2024)
- 7% buffer due to price volatility
- Treasury ask: 139,470.90 DOT
