Boot nodes are required for light clients to join the network - they tell joiners what other nodes (RPC & validators) are available.

RPC nodes and validators, via p2p protocol, combine to bind the network into a mesh. RPC service providers are crucial as they provide the mesh for the light client to join.

We should careful to force users onto light client - if they are on mobile this will use a lot of bandwidth.

Also worth noting, the light client has no history, so any action that requires looking back in time will need to connect to a node that has history.

_(Disclaimer: METASPAN is providing boot and RPC services via the IBP)_

Thanks for sharing. Will validators be sufficient to form this mesh? Are full nodes still required? I suppose with light clients, the load/requirements for full nodes are much reduced.  

Validators are normally pruned to 256 or 1000 blocks, so they don't keep much history. Also, validator operators would not want to carry the workload of heavy queries, bulk submission of transactions etc. The job of the validator is to be ready and capable to mint the next block.

I would also not run RPC workload against my own validators, and for this purpose I don't open the RPC/wss ports.

We have indexers for historical. Can't light clients rely on a sufficiently large validator set to fulfill more complex transactions? I agree that RPC can't be deprecated fully, but reduced usage is expected as light clients gain adoption?

All RPC providers needs to have a strategy to handle the case when everyone migrates to light clients. We should push everyone to use light clients for better decentralization and security.

We still need nodes to serve light clients but that will be a different requirement compare to RPC nodes. Also all the RPC dashboard related work will be irrelevant. Futhermore I will expect reduced loads on nodes as some executions will be done locally by the light clients.

Noted on this. We are aware of Polkadot's push to utilize light clients. Note that this treasury claim is for service rendered in Q4 2022 and it will be the final claim.

Proponent: Pinknode

Date: 14/03/2023

Amount in USD: $20,093.46 

Amount in DOT:  3447.74 DOT 

DOT Rate: $5.828 (using EMA7 as of 14/03/2023)

DOT Account: 14K2YrPm8TTo8aNMqp7FJjbpysi7vm1j7QjKg86q6W6wVzPr

Proposal Summary: Costs for running secure, reliable, and scalable public infrastructure for Polkadot, Statemint, and Westend

Project Summary

Pinknode is a node-as-a-service platform focused on providing shared API endpoint and node operation services catering exclusively to the Polkadot ecosystem. We launched our MVP in June 2021 and have been providing free RPC services to the Polkadot ecosystem’s participants since Q3 2021. Our mission is to aid the Polkadot protocol in achieving its vision of a multi-chain future by providing easy-to-use, reliable, and scalable infrastructure services which remove an entire layer of complexities for developers to start building on Polkadot/Substrate.

Ecosystem participants can access our free API service by creating their own API Key on Pinknode Portal or using our public endpoints (listed at https://polkadot.js.org/apps). In a bid to reduce barriers to entry and attract more developers to the ecosystem, our premium plan, which includes archival data and higher rate limits, is also free for all builders and participants of Polkadot to utilize. We are not charging our users anything at this moment.

https://public-rpc.pinknode.io/polkadot

wss://public-rpc.pinknode.io/polkadot

https://public-rpc.pinknode.io/statemint

wss://public-rpc.pinknode.io/statemint

https://public-rpc.pinknode.io/westend

wss://public-rpc.pinknode.io/westend

Service Details

From 1 October 2022 to 31 December 2022,

Pinknode’s Polkadot RPC nodes have served an average of 7,259,280 requests per day, for a cumulative total of 675,113,094 requests for the quarter.

Pinknode’s Statemint RPC nodes have served an average of 213,150 requests per day, for a cumulative total of 19,609,835 requests for the quarter.

Pinknode’s Westend RPC nodes have served an average of 229,823 requests per day, for a cumulative total of 21,373,571 requests for the quarter.

Enhancements during Q4 2022:

-Added “Team API calls used’ on main dashboard for effective summary

-Moved request log storage to AWS S3 for faster UX

-Added toggle switch for live request viewer, to be initiated by users as opposed to default

-Upgrades to our proxy for more accurate logging

Pinknode achieved service reliability of 99.88% for Q4 2022 with one major downtime incident on 21 November 2022.

Our status page is publicly maintained.

Our full report including raw data and graphs can be viewed [here.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/18m7e6IhuKjS8eGG7QYJSGBTjEx-vxgTuCYz_p5xi7VA/edit?usp=sharing)

Approve a proposal. At a later time, the proposal will be allocated to the beneficiary
and the original deposit will be returned.

May only be called from `T::ApproveOrigin`.

# <weight>
- Complexity: O(1).
- DbReads: `Proposals`, `Approvals`
- DbWrite: `Approvals`
# </weight>

#374 Pinknode Public Endpoint for Polkadot in Q4 2022