[Pre-Proposal] Pine-RPC: EVM-RPC Compatibility Layer on Smoldot

12WG...xKEr
1hr 45mins ago
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1. Executive Summary

Pine-RPC addresses a critical infrastructure gap in the Polkadot ecosystem: the heavy reliance on centralized RPC providers for EVM-compatible networks. Centralized endpoints often throttle developers and users during periods of high traffic, which introduces friction on development networks deploying pallet_revive. Additionally, traditional RPC nodes may not support eth-rpc or may go offline any reason, or no reason at all. A resilient network cannot exist with such fragile infrastructure.

While Smoldot light clients allow users to bypass traditional RPCs completely by running a validation node directly in the browser, a secondary bottleneck exists. Most standard Ethereum toolkits, decentralized applications (dApps), and developer setups rely strictly on the standard Ethereum JSON-RPC format (eth-rpc), rather than native Substrate APIs

Pine-RPC acts as a lightweight compatibility layer. It translates eth-rpc calls locally and in-app via a self-contained Smoldot node server, offering a fully decentralized connection without central failure points.

2. Problem Statement & Ecosystem Impact

The Core Problem

  • RPC Throttling: Public RPC endpoints are prone to rate limits, downtime, and high maintenance costs.
  • Tooling Mismatch: Front-end dApps built for EVM environments cannot communicate natively with Smoldot light clients without complex manual translation layers.

Ecosystem Value

  • Enhanced Developer UX: Developers working on pallet_revive and can run tests locally without hitting centralized provider restrictions
  • True Decentralization: Shifts the infrastructure burden away from subsidized ecosystem RPCs and onto client-side light clients.
  • Cost Savings: Reduces the long-term treasury overhead required to fund third-party infrastructure providers, such as separate Substrate RPC and Eth RPC endpoints

3. Scope of Work & Delivered Milestones

This request is a retroactive funding proposal for the completed initial development and deployment of the Pine-RPC codebase. The deliverables include:

Core Code Architecture

  • Smoldot Node Server Setup: A self-contained, lightweight server deployment engineered to interpret and translate incoming EVM-RPC calls on the fly.
  • PineProvider Client Integration: A plug-and-play provider library (PineProvider) allowing front-end dApps to integrate the local Smoldot node client-side seamlessly.
  • API Mapping & Compatibility: Implementation of core Ethereum JSON-RPC endpoints to ensure standard web3 tooling recognizes the connection within the defined limitations of a validation node

Testing & Verification

  • Environment Validation: Successfully tested against active pallet_revive runtime configurations and the Paseo testnet.
  • Open Source Release: Codebase is fully documented, licensed, and available to the public on GitHub for community audit and implementation.

4. Financial Breakdown

The requested 998 DOT fits within the OpenGov Big Tipper track parameters (capped at 1,000 DOT) and compensates for the core engineering hours required to launch the project.

Deliverable / Expense Type Description Cost (DOT)
Core Architecture Development Engineering hours spent building the self-contained Smoldot node translation server. 500 DOT
PineProvider Client Integration Developing the importable client-side provider to hook front-ends directly into the light client. 298 DOT
EVM/Paseo Testnet Validation Comprehensive API mapping, pallet_revive testing, debugging, and open-source documentation setup. 200 DOT
Total Requested Fixed Request 998 DOT

5. Future Outlook

Following community review and successful delivery of this base infrastructure, future iterations of Pine-RPC may look toward:

  • Optimizing client-side bundle sizes for faster web-app loading times.
  • Providing turn-key boilerplate repositories for teams deploying on pallet_revive.

Thank you for your time, review, and feedback on this pre-proposal. This is my first substantive technical contribution to the broader Polkadot ecosystem and believe it aligns with the core ethos of decentralization. This was created to solve a problem I faced in developing on pallet_revive amid the uncertainty of RPC endpoint liveness.

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