Problem
As developers we continue to build upon Agoric blockchain’s capabilities; however, one pressing challenge that our community faces is the high cost associated with installing bundles on-chain.
Currently, the cost stands at approximately 0.002 IST/byte or $2 per kilobyte (KB) (see DefaultBeansPerStorageByte parameter), a rate that significantly restricts participation and innovation, particularly for developers and projects that require deploying large or numerous smart contracts and applications on Agoric blockchain.
E.g. The latest KREAd smart contract deployment cost around 10K IST.
This prohibitive cost creates two specific issues:
1. Barrier to Entry for Small Projects:
New and innovative projects, often with tighter budgets, find it difficult to allocate resources for such high deployment costs, stifling innovation and diversity within our blockchain ecosystem.
2. Reduced Transaction Volume:
High bundle cost may affect reduced transaction volumes. Lowering the cost to deploy a bundle on any blockchain typically encourages developers to deploy more often, leading to an increase in user engagement with these new contracts and ultimately an increase in transaction volume. This reduced financial barrier allows for a wider range of applications and use-cases to be viable, attracting more projects, more users and ultimately more liquidity to the ecosystem.
We do acknowledge the upcoming changes that will help reduce some costs:
E.g. soon you should only need to pay for new modules:
There’s also some possible clean-up Agoric Opco is looking into:
However, the biggest impact will come from reducing the overall cost of installing the bundles.
Cost comparison with ETH:
Proposed Solution
To address the outlined issues and foster a more inclusive and innovative environment, we’d like to propose reducing the cost of installing a bundle on-chain from $2/KB to $0.02/KB.
This reduction by 99% aims to encourage higher participation and a broader range of applications and more inline with other chains.
The actual implementation of this proposal would include a simple parameter change.
Considerations
As we lower the barriers to entry on the Agoric blockchain, it’s natural to expect a surge in activity, which may include an uptick in repetitive deployments, often characterized as “spam”. While this is a typical side effect of growth and increased accessibility, introducing bundle size limitations for contract deployment could mitigate potential spam attacks.
In conclusion, by responsibly reducing the on-chain bundle installation costs, we open up the Agoric blockchain to a new era of innovation and community participation. I’d like to invite further discussion and collaboration from community members to refine and implement this change effectively.