Please describe your proposed solution

We need to lower the entry-barrier for projects that want to implement bridges and cross-chain messaging with Cardano. By providing reusable building blocks, we can bring down the development cost drastically.

Oura is an existing, battle-tested tool to build data pipelines that connect Cardano's on-chain events (eg: blocks, transactions, certificates, etc) to external system such as work-queues, databases and web-hooks. It's used extensibly by many projects in the ecosystem.

Oura has a modular architecture with a diverse set of plugins to fulfill Cardano-specific tasks. Our solution consists on extending the current library of plugins to include connectors to other blockchains, allowing the creation of data pipelines that expand across multiple chains.

In particular we are implementing the following features:

• Bitcoin support: a new source plugin will be available, allowing Oura to connect to a Bitcoin RPC endpoint and process Bitcoin blocks and transactions.
• Ethereum support: a new source plugin will be available, allowing Oura to connect to a Ethereum-compatible JSON-RPC endpoint and process Ethereum blocks, transactions and logs.
• Substrate support: a new source plugin will be available, allowing Oura to connect to a Substrate-compatible JSON-RPC endpoint and process Substrate blocks, extrinsics and logs.

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

This project directly addresses a critical need in the evolving Web3 landscape: cross chain interoperability. As the blockchain space expands with a growing number of L1s, L2s, and L3s, users and developers face increasing complexity and fragmentation. A prerequisite for wide adoption is seamless communication between otherwise siloed ecosystems.

Empowering developers with tools to implement bridges between Cardano and other chains will improve liquidity, enable new use-cases and make it more attractive for enterprise adoption.

Cardano's robust technology and large pool operator network make it ideally suited to become the best-in-class settlement layer. This would drive on-chain activity and appreciation of ADA as a base asset.

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

TxPipe is an active member of the Cardano ecosystem

TxPipe has been developing open-source tools for the Cardano ecosystem for over 2 years and we're not going anywhere. Evidence of our commitment can be found by evaluating the continuous activity of our public code repositories.

Experience developing in the Cardano ecosystem

TxPipe has helped developed several dApps for the Cardano ecosystem. This experience allows us to evaluate the feasibility of the project and its potential benefit from a developer's perspective.

Successful Catalyst proposals

We have successfully completed several Catalyst proposals. This may serve as evidence that our team has the required capabilities to fulfill these type of projects.

Development process will be public and open-source

Both the output and the development process will be public and open-source. This approach provides an easy way for the Catalyst team and the Cardano community to evaluate the progress at each step of the process.

What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1: Project Scaffolding

Milestone outputs:

• An updated pipeline model that supports multiple-chains
• A stub of the Bitcoin source plugin
• A stub of the Ethereum source plugin
• A stub of the Substrate source plugin

Acceptance criteria:

• All components stubs are ready for feature development
• A CI/CD pipeline is in place to build / integrate the different artifacts

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code containing the project scaffold

Milestone 2: Bitcoin Integration

Milestone outputs:

• A functional Bitcoin source plugin

Acceptance criteria:

• Oura is capable of connecting to a Bitcoin RPC endpoint
• Oura is capable of processing Bitcoin blocks and transactions

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code containing the new plugin
• A new binary release of Oura containing the new plugin
• Link to documentation for the new plugin
• Video showing an Oura pipeline connected to a Bitcoin node

Milestone 3: Ethereum Integration

Milestone outputs:

• A functional Ethereum source plugin

Acceptance criteria:

• Oura is capable of connecting to an Ethereum RPC endpoint
• Oura is capable of processing Ethereum blocks, transactions and logs

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code containing the new plugin
• A new binary release of Oura containing the new plugin
• Link to documentation for the new plugin
• Video showing an Oura pipeline connected to an Ethereum node

Milestone 4: Substrate Integration

Milestone outputs:

• A functional Substrate source plugin

Acceptance criteria:

• Oura is capable of connecting to a Substrate RPC endpoint
• Oura is capable of processing Substrate blocks, transactions and logs

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code containing the Substrate plugin
• A new binary release of Oura containing the new plugin
• Link to documentation for the new plugin
• Video showing an Oura pipeline connected to a Substrate node

Milestone 5: Cross-Chain Messaging Reference Implementation

Milestone outputs:

• A functional example of a basic wrapped-asset bridge
• A functional example of a Bitcoin chain observer
• A functional example of a Ethereum chain observer
• A functional example of a Substrate chain observer

Acceptance criteria:

• A developer can use the provided examples to understand Oura's new features
• A developer is able to use the provided examples to build custom solutions

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Publicly available source-code of the examples
• Video showcasing the available examples

Final Milestone: Closeout report

Milestone outputs:

• publicly available source-code of the complete system
• publicly available documentation site with latest updates
• a video showcasing the final output of the project
• a final report describing the project process and outcome

Acceptance criteria:

• the final system includes all features described in the proposal's scope
• the final video complies with Catalyst requirements
• the final report complies with Catalyst requirements

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Source-code available in the Github repository
• Public documentation site (URL TBD)
• Final video uploaded to Google drive
• Final report uploaded to Google drive

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

TxPipe members involved in this project will be:

• Santiago Carmuega - Github
• Federico Weill - Linkedin
• Rodrigo Suaya - Linkedin
• Felipe Gonzalez - Github
• Paulo Bressan - Github
• Manuel Gunther - Linkedin
• Franco Luque - Github
• Alejandro Gadea - Github

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

FTE = Full-time equivalent

Software development:

• Rust developer: 1 FTE x 6 months = ₳ 154,286
• Technical Writer: 1/2 FTE x 2 months = ₳ 8,571

Infrastructure:

• Site-reliability engineer: 1/2 FTE x 2 months = ₳ 22,857

Project Management:

• Project Manager: 1/4 FTE x 6 months = ₳ 12,857

No dependencies.

How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The bulk of the budget falls under the software development category. TxPipe has extensive experience in the field, allowing it to provide good value for money. The hourly rates are defined using fair market prices. The estimation for the level of effort takes into account all of the optimizations that our team is capable of providing after years of experience developing software solutions in the Cardano ecosystem.