Relay Mining: A Scalable Decentralized Solution for Incentivizing Non-Validating Nodes to Service All RPC Types

Core Concepts

Relay Mining presents a scalable crypto-economic solution to incentivize full non-validating nodes in a permissionless network to service non-transactional (read) RPC requests, addressing the lack of on-chain incentives for such nodes.

Abstract

Relay Mining introduces a novel algorithm to efficiently process and analyze a high volume of Remote Procedure Call (RPC) requests in a decentralized and permissionless network. The key aspects of the solution are:

Crypto-economic incentives: Relay Mining leverages a native cryptocurrency on a distributed ledger to rate limit applications and disincentivize over-usage, providing financial incentives for non-validating nodes to service read-only RPC requests.

Scalability: The solution scales to accommodate hundreds of billions of daily read requests by employing probabilistic mechanisms, commit-and-reveal schemes, and Sparse Merkle Sum Tries (SMSTs) to prove the amount of work done by service providers.

Decentralized rate limiting: Relay Mining facilitates multi-tenant rate limiting within a permissionless environment, drawing insights from distributed rate limiting research and principles like concentration, max-min, and correlation awareness.

The algorithm is designed to be robust against Byzantine actors and dynamic network conditions, with a built-in difficulty modulation mechanism to adapt to organic growth in RPC traffic. Experiments on real-world data from the Pocket Network demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in handling various traffic patterns, including steady high volume, soft surges, step drops, and step surges.

Stats

The Pocket Network has processed over 465 billion successful relays since its genesis on October 22, 2021, with the number of served relays per day increasing from approximately 1.5 million to 1.5 billion, with a peak of 2 billion on May 8, 2023.
The network currently supports 50 blockchains, distributed over 14 gateways and more than 12 major infrastructure providers across all continents.

Quotes

"Relay Mining presents a scalable solution employing probabilistic mechanisms, crypto-economic incentives, and new cryptographic primitives to estimate and prove the volume of Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) made from a client to a server."
"By leveraging crypto-economic incentives, we reduce coordination overhead costs and introduce a mechanism for providing RPC services that are both geopolitically and geographically distributed."

Key Insights Distilled From

Relay Mining: Incentivizing Full Non-Validating Nodes Servicing All RPC Types

by Dani... at arxiv.org 04-30-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2305.10672.pdf

Deeper Inquiries

How can Relay Mining be extended to support general-purpose compute units beyond just RPC requests?

Relay Mining can be extended to support general-purpose compute units by introducing a mechanism to allocate different weights to the leaves in the Merkle Sum Tree based on the computational resources required for each request. This would allow for more granular control over the utilization of computational resources by different types of requests. By assigning different weights to the leaves, the rate limiting mechanism can be customized on a per-request basis, enabling a more efficient allocation of resources based on the specific requirements of each request. This extension would enhance the versatility of the rate limiting approach, allowing it to cater to a wider range of application requirements beyond just RPC requests.

What are the potential security implications of the commit-and-reveal scheme, and how can they be further mitigated?

The commit-and-reveal scheme used in Relay Mining introduces potential security implications, particularly in terms of the integrity and confidentiality of the data being committed and revealed. One key concern is the risk of malicious actors manipulating the data during the commit phase to gain an advantage during the reveal phase. This could lead to fraudulent claims or unauthorized access to sensitive information.
To mitigate these security implications, several measures can be implemented:

Encryption: Encrypting the data during the commit phase can help protect it from unauthorized access or tampering.
Digital Signatures: Implementing digital signatures on the committed data can ensure its integrity and authenticity.
Secure Hash Functions: Using secure hash functions for generating digests can prevent data manipulation and ensure data integrity.
Randomness: Introducing randomness in the commit-and-reveal process can make it harder for malicious actors to predict or manipulate the data.

By incorporating these security measures and following best practices in cryptographic protocols, the potential security implications of the commit-and-reveal scheme can be effectively mitigated.

How can Relay Mining's principles be applied to other decentralized services beyond RPC provisioning to incentivize non-validating nodes?

Relay Mining's principles can be applied to other decentralized services beyond RPC provisioning by adapting the mechanism to suit the specific requirements of different services. For example:

Data Storage Services: Implementing a similar commit-and-reveal scheme for verifying data storage and retrieval requests, incentivizing non-validating nodes to participate in storing and retrieving data securely.
Content Delivery Networks: Using Relay Mining to incentivize non-validating nodes to serve content delivery requests efficiently and reliably, ensuring high availability and low latency for users.
Decentralized Computing: Extending Relay Mining to incentivize non-validating nodes to perform computational tasks in a decentralized computing network, rewarding them based on the complexity and volume of computations they handle.

By customizing the principles of Relay Mining to suit the specific needs of different decentralized services, non-validating nodes can be incentivized to contribute to the network's operations while maintaining security, scalability, and efficiency.