2024 Q4 & 2025 Q1 - Subscan Funding Proposal for Operation and Maintenance Fee

Upd 3: You know what, you’re right. To hell with everything. Let it all burn in hell. — No.

Address to the Subscan team and the Interlay community

After carefully analyzing the proposal to fund Subscan Explorer for $6,199 for the period from 01/10/2024 to 31/03/2025, I want to present a detailed breakdown of the situation to the community.

To the Subscan team:

1. Lack of transparency in pricing
   The invoice only shows the total amount of $5,904 + 5% service fee, without detailing:

   • How much is charged for data storage
   • How much is charged for data processing (computing resources)
   • How much is charged for API and interface access
   • How much is charged for monitoring and technical support

   The community needs a complete breakdown of expenses to make an informed decision.

2. Inconsistency with stated rates
   According to your own rates:

   • Basic plan: $799/month for volumes up to 200 GB
   • For each additional GB: $5.3

   With a volume of 234.92 GB, the calculation should yield:

   • Basic plan: $799
   • Additional: 34.92 GB × $5.3 = $185.08
   • Total: $984.08/month × 6 months = $5,904.48 + 5% fee = $6,199.70

   As we can see, the amount matches what was stated, but the question arises: does Interlay really generate 234.92 GB of data monthly? This seems inflated for our project.

3. Need for data volume details

   • How exactly is the volume of 234.92 GB measured?
   • Is this the size of the database, or does it include traffic, cache, logs?
   • Can we get monthly usage statistics from October 2024 to March 2025?
   • What specific data takes up the most space?

4. Absence of SLA and performance reports
   For $984/month we expect clear guarantees:

   • Uptime
   • API response speed
   • Data update frequency
   • Backup procedures

5. Regarding retroactive payment
   I understand these services have already been provided. However, the community must evaluate the value proposition objectively. The project's current financial situation doesn't allow for such expenses at the requested rate. We would like to discuss more sustainable pricing options that reflect both the value provided and our financial constraints.

To the Interlay community:

Let's consider alternatives with specific figures:

Price comparison (monthly):

Subscan (current proposal): $984 + 5% per month, $6,199 for 6 months

OnFinality (small project): $58.40 per month, $350.40 for 6 months

OnFinality (medium project): $144.47 per month, $866.82 for 6 months

OnFinality (large project): $490.60 per month, $2,943.60 for 6 months

AWS (basic infrastructure): ~$250 per month, ~$1,500 for 6 months

Statescan (via OpenSquare): Even lower costs

As you can see, even the most expensive OnFinality plan costs 2 times less than the Subscan proposal.

Community feedback:

1. User wliyongfeng suggested considering Statescan: "The community can deploy it by yourself or OpenSquare can host it with a relative low cost."

2. User cap directly supported: "Yes, let's go for Statescan. We can't afford to pay for subscan."

3. User mafux777 raised important infrastructure questions: "How many nodes are running? Who pays for these nodes? Who maintains the runtime of the parachain when the next relay chain software update breaks something?"

Financial reality of the project:

In current market conditions, Interlay must optimize expenses to survive. Spending $12,000 per year just on an explorer is an unaffordable luxury when alternatives exist that are 2-4 times cheaper. This is especially important for responsible treasury management, as approving such expenses when cheaper alternatives exist could create a concerning precedent.

Recognition of technical challenges:

I recognize that migration requires technical resources and time. As user mafux777 noted, it's not possible to simply "switch" to another explorer. This will require:

• A person with the necessary knowledge
• A person with the necessary access rights
• Time for testing and integration

Immediate temporary solution:

In the interim, while developing a permanent solution, the project could rely on Polkadot-JS Apps for basic blockchain exploration functionality. While not as user-friendly as Subscan, it provides essential data access at no additional cost and is already operational.

My proposal:

1. Short-term:

   • Reject the current proposal
   • Request a substantial discount from Subscan (maximum $500/month)
   • Use Polkadot-JS Apps as a temporary backup solution

2. Medium-term (1-3 months):

   • Start the migration process to OnFinality/SubQuery or Statescan
   • Create a working group to assess technical requirements
   • Contact key people:
     • OpenSquare for Statescan
     • [email protected] for SubQuery

3. Long-term:

   • Develop a comprehensive strategy to optimize the entire infrastructure
   • Consider decentralized solutions such as:
     • Phala Network for decentralized computation ($0.069 per hour per instance)
     • Acurast for compute tasks (from 0.001 cACU per execution)
     • Crust Network for storage (from $0.001349 to $0.004136 per GB per year)
   • These solutions could potentially reduce infrastructure costs by 80-90%

I vote AGAINST this proposal not because I don't value Subscan's work, but because:

1. The price is disproportionately high compared to market alternatives
2. There is a lack of transparency in cost formation
3. The current financial position of the project requires more economical solutions
4. Agreeing to such expenses would create a dangerous precedent for future spending
5. The requested amount represents approximately 1,900,000 INTR tokens, which would likely be sold on the market, further depressing the token price

As investors and community members, our primary responsibility is to ensure the long-term viability of the project. This requires making difficult but financially responsible decisions.

Respectfully,
Mr.RR

Sorry, but the project can't spend a cent right now...

Afaik onfinality provide is rpcs, not explorers

What exactly they will provide here?

Subquery is a indexer ( i.e they collect the onchain data and publish/share on a node) but again, still is not a explorer

So the only other solution is, maybe statecan

I can talk to statecan guys and said that made a proposal for 3 months, to see if holders accept

And even that, not will be online magically from one day to other

You need an working explorer meanwhile statecan is being worked 😅

If you are going to make a migration, you need both products working. And at this step we will be without exploring, which is a great danger, as it does not allow us to review suspicious transactions for example.

You are thinking very close and that will affect the project more than a 6k spend.

I voted yes. This expense is low compared to the reputational damage of losing a good explorer.

To the Interlay Community,

I’ve read through all the discussions above, and I’d like to respond to them collectively here.

Thank you for the detailed feedback on our recent reimbursement proposal. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify several key points:

1. About the 234.92 GB Volume
   The figure of 234.92 GB represents the total storage consumed by Interlay data on Subscan, which grows steadily with each new block. While this metric isn’t the entirety of our operational costs, it correlates directly with them and therefore serves as a transparent, usage-based pricing anchor.

2. Post-Paid Billing Model
   Subscan operates on a post-paid model, enabling precise billing against actual usage. This arrangement—and the associated rates—were mutually agreed upon for the current and previous periods. Because the invoice covers services already rendered under that agreement, we believe the reimbursement should be approved.

3. On Cost Comparisons
   Public records show Subsquare requested $7,200 in 2024—about $600 per month. Subscan currently handles over 1.5× the traffic and provides deeper analytics, yet our pricing remains in line with other full-featured explorers such as Blockscout.

4. Discount for Annual Pre-Payment
   Should the community prefer to pre-pay for a full year, we can extend a 20 % discount plus unlimited usage for the period. We’re happy to draft a revised proposal if this better fits Interlay’s budgeting needs.

5. Performance & Future Cost Reductions
   Subscan runs on high-performance infrastructure in Google Cloud Platform (GCP), ensuring reliable uptime, rapid indexing, and fast API responses. We recognize this contributes to higher costs. To mitigate this, we’re actively migrating workloads to a private cloud and expect significant cost savings later this year, which we will pass on to partners like Interlay.

6. Enhanced Token-Level Features for Interlay
   Subscan offers advanced token-level functionality—detailed token pages, holder distribution, historical transfers, and automatic support for new tokens—dramatically improving user experience and reducing the need for Interlay to build or maintain separate dashboards.

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We value our collaboration with Interlay and remain committed to supporting your ecosystem. If budget priorities ultimately steer the community toward another explorer, we will cooperate fully with the migration, but kindly ask that services already delivered be reimbursed as agreed.

Thank you again for the constructive dialogue. We’re always open to further discussion and look forward to finding the best path forward together.

Warm regards,
The Subscan Team

We should probably rerun this one more time, and it will pass. If we don't pass this the interest rates on the money market will jump crazy high soon, and that will harm the future of Interlay severely. You can't not have a block explorer. If you want to change providers that's fine, but we have to keep paying Subscan until we decide to permanently switch.

Here's a message for the community that addresses the Subscan situation:

The community should be aware that even without Subscan, blockchain functionality remains completely intact. Transactions have always been and will continue to be verifiable through multiple channels:

1. Polkadot-JS Apps provides full blockchain exploration capabilities at zero cost - this has been available since day one

2. Any transaction can be independently verified directly on the blockchain without requiring a third-party explorer

3. The core protocol functions independently of any visualization layer - explorers are conveniences, not necessities

4. For developers and technical users, RPC endpoints provide all required data access without needing a graphical interface

The argument that "we can't operate without Subscan" is fundamentally incorrect. Many Polkadot projects successfully operate using alternative solutions that are either free or significantly more cost-effective.

When project resources are limited, paying premium prices for services with multiple free alternatives is simply not responsible treasury management. Our decision to migrate to a more cost-effective solution is both technically sound and fiscally responsible.

Remember: nothing about blockchain verification, transaction processing, or network security requires Subscan specifically. The data lives on-chain, not in their databases.

@wdD4...bt52
GM, thank you for beeing active in the Interlay governance. We understand what happens to Paralell was bad, but Interlay despite everything still has a community and holders and as long we are here and voting what happens to Paralell won't happen easily with us and it would be great if you also continues to be active and voting. We just can't afford to pay these high rates for Subscan anymore. Interlay isn't the only project who has left Subscan because of its high prices. Others teams also state that they charge a lot and for everything. On Statescan, we can trace normal transacionas and vote. We hope Polkadot will grow and will have a explore for the whole ecosystem one day. Untill then we should move to a solution we can afford, even if it isn't the best. Sometimes "the better (best) is the enemy of the good." (Voltaire)