Project Name: Fabstir Web3 Media Player #3
Organisation: Fabstir
Primary Contact: Jules Lai (Founder and CTO of Fabstir)
Summary:
The one-year grant period focuses on bringing real-world adoption to Fabstir Media Player whilst helping to ensure S5 scales effectively with production use cases. The primary objectives are to increase adoption of Sia.tech’s decentralised storage and develop additional software integrations for Sia within Web3.
The Fabstir Media Player will undergo a comprehensive security audit by an approved auditor for listing in the MetaMask Snaps Directory, potentially exposing the player and ecosystem to MetaMask’s 30+ million monthly active users.
Previous grant proposals #1 and #2
Objectives:
OrbitDB Storage Adapter
Fabstir Media Player uses FabstirDB; a general purpose decentralised graph database. This uses OrbitDB and ipfs. The OrbitDB storage adapter will allow Fabstir’s database to be instead stored on Sia.
-
Develop S5 storage adapter for OrbitDB that:
- Maps user keys to S5 CIDs via S5 streams
- Enables peer-to-peer sync of key-value mappings
- Implements core OrbitDB operations:
- put, get, del operations
- iterator functionality
- merge operations
- clear operations
- Handles conflict resolution using S5 streams’ revision numbering
- Maintains data consistency across peers
- Implements radix trees for efficient:
- Prefix path lookups
- Range queries
- Key-value store operations
S5 Network Scalability Testing & Integration
The initial phase begins with the Non-Multiplex Cinema short film festival. I am the founder and will be organising and hosting the events in London’s Soho district. Filmmakers will utilise Fabstir Media Player to upload their submissions, whilst our selected panel of judges will curate the final festival programme. This event provides an excellent opportunity to test both the robustness of the media player and S5’s CDN network under real-world conditions.
In the latter half of the year, we will expand to support full-length feature films up to 4K resolution, with several US distribution companies already committed to using Fabstir once launched. A big test will come when Fabstir Media Player gains approval to be listed on MetaMask’s Snaps directory with the potential of a flood of new users.
-
Implement comprehensive testing framework for S5 network that:
- Develops load testing infrastructure:
- Simulates concurrent video uploads
- Tests multiple resolution streaming
- Measures network latency under load
- Monitors CID retrieval performance
- Implements analytics module into Fabstir Media Player:
- Tracks node performance utilisation
- Monitors media formats streamed for size and bitrate
- Analyses storage sizes and distribution
- Logging system that includes network health statistics
- Host S5 node:
- Learn from S5’s isolated node for Fabstir
- Deploy Fabstir’s hosted S5 node
- Measure network latency under load
- Host Sia node to enhance reliability for efficient backup and restoration
- Develops load testing infrastructure:
AI Search Engine Backup/Sync
AI search engine has been developed and is operational. It can use different open-source LLM models from Facebook’s Llama to Mistral AI. The system enables users to selectively authorise which of their assets stored in Fabstir’s decentralised graph database can be indexed for search capabilities - ranging from media content to various forms of structured data. This granular control ensures user privacy whilst maximising the utility of semantic search across Fabstir’s network. The task here is to decentralise the vector embeddings and store them on Sia, using S5 to sync the data across Kubernetes pods.
-
Develop S5-based distributed system that:
- Maintains vector embeddings across Kubernetes pods:
- Enables pod failover
- Provides load balancing
- Syncs via S5 streams
- Implements incremental backups to Sia:
- LLaMA/Mistral AI embeddings
- Elasticsearch indices
- Preserves semantic search capability
- Handles pod synchronisation:
- Uses S5’s distributed architecture
- Maintains vector similarity calculations
- Preserves index optimisations
- Implements versioning system:
- Uses S5 streams for manifest tracking
- Enables differential updates
- Allows selective data fetching by pods
- Maintains vector embeddings across Kubernetes pods:
Security Audits & Implementation
Sayfer, a leading Web3 cybersecurity company, brings substantial expertise to auditing both smart contracts and MetaMask Snaps. Their team includes senior security researchers with proven track records in blockchain security, including notable achievements like discovering the Badreveal exploit that affected 10% of NFT projects. With over 100 successful audits across various chains and ecosystems, their comprehensive audit package will evaluate Fabstir’s smart contracts and MetaMask Snaps against the Smart Contract Security Verification Standard (SCSVSv2). This standard is accepted by major regulations and embraced by industry leaders including the Ethereum Foundation. Their expertise in MetaMask Snaps security assessment is particularly valuable for meeting Consensys’s marketplace requirements, ensuring Fabstir Media Player can be safely distributed to MetaMask’s 30+ million users.
-
Execute comprehensive security enhancement that:
- Implements smart contract improvements:
- Strengthens NFT and ABT token factory contracts
- Secures marketplace operations
- Enhances micropayment systems
- Fortifies RMRK nestable implementations
- Enhances MetaMask Snap security:
- Implements Consensys marketplace requirements
- Strengthens state management and storage
- Improves key handling protocols
- Updates permission boundaries
- Develops monitoring and maintenance:
- Creates security monitoring dashboard
- Implements automated testing framework
- Establishes update protocols
- Maintains compliance documentation
- Implements post-audit system:
- Tracks contract interactions
- Monitors transaction patterns
- Updates security guidelines
- Provides deployment checklists
- Implements smart contract improvements:
Budget:
The grant proposal is for $127,940 to support the project’s open-source development for 12 months. The budget allocation is as follows:
| Item | Cost ($) |
|---|---|
| Jules Lai to be full-stack Web3 developer | 85,000 |
| UI developer and designer | 4,000 |
| Devops engineer and support | 5,000 |
| AI developer | 2,000 |
| Security Audits & Implementation | 14,000 |
| GPU & CPU cloud | 11,940* |
| Hardware/software | 3,000* |
| Legal/accounting | 1,500 |
| Contingency and Miscellaneous | 1,500 |
| Total | 127,940 |
Breakdown of GPU & CPU cloud cost
*Preliminary quotes have been gathered from Vultr for GPU cloud, Cloudflare for S5 node host and Hetzner for Sia node hosting.
| Item | Calculation | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU cloud | NVIDIA A16 GPU |
$350/mth * 6 | $2100 |
| GPU cloud | NVIDIA L40S GPU |
$1220/mth * 6 | $7320 |
| CPU cloud | Cloudflare Business |
$250/mth * 7 | $1750 |
| CPU cloud | Hetzner EX101 |
$100/mth * 7 | $770 |
Hosted NVIDIA GPU servers have to use professional range of GPUs. AV1 video encoding that has better compression will be used with Ada Lovelace architecture for last six months to facilitate scaling to up to full length movies at 4K resolution.
Breakdown of Hardware/Software Budget
| Item | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Developer laptop (4K capable) | Mobile development/testing |
| 32" 4K monitor | Enhanced development workspace |
| NAS with RAID configuration | Secure backup storage |
| 2TB NVMe SSD | Development environment |
| Software licences: | |
| - Cloud backup service | Offsite backup redundancy |
| - Development IDE subscriptions | Enhanced coding tools |
| - Security/antivirus suite | System protection |
| - Monitoring tools | System performance tracking |
Milestones and Timeline
Q1 (Months 1-3): Foundation Development
-
Month 1:
- Complete OrbitDB adapter architecture design
- Implement basic S5 streams integration
- Set up initial testing framework for S5 network
- Implement core OrbitDB operations with S5
-
Month 2:
- Complete OrbitDB-S5 conflict resolution
- Begin smart contract security improvements
- Complete radix tree implementation
-
Month 3:
- Finish initial security audit phase
- Begin MetaMask Snap security enhancements
- Optimise OrbitDB performance
Q2 (Months 4-6): Integration & Testing
-
Month 4:
- Deploy load testing infrastructure
- Implement analytics monitoring
- Scale testing with concurrent users
- Improve backup/restore mechanisms
- Implement feedback from security audits
-
Month 5:
- Complete MetaMask Snap marketplace requirements
- Switch from Base Sepolia testnet to Base Mainnet
- Implement advanced analytics features
- Complete integration testing phase
- Implement feedback and fixes from real-world short film festival
-
Month 6:
- Set up hosted Sia node
- Set up hosted S5 node
- Finalise security monitoring dashboard
- Real-world deployment testing for movie-length 4K
Q3 (Months 7-9): Optimisation & Scaling
-
Month 7:
- Complete production deployment for L40S cloud infrastructure
- Complete security post-audit implementation
- Fine-tune pod load balancing
- Optimise streaming performance
- Deploy production monitoring systems
-
Month 8:
- Deploy AI search engine backup system
- Implement AI vector embeddings sync
- Integrate versioning system for AI backups
- Enhance AI search pod synchronisation
-
Month 9:
- Help and support for film industry participants
- Test full system under load
- Implement feedback and fix any issues
Q4 (Months 10-12): Production & Documentation
-
Month 10:
- Start comprehensive documentation
- Finalise all security implementations
-
Month 11:
- Complete all documentation
- Address any remaining issues
- Final system optimisation
-
Month 12:
- Overall maintenance, scaling and security tasks
Future Benefits to Sia
-
Enhances Sia’s Web3 ecosystem integration:
- Implements production OrbitDB adapter for Sia storage
- Provides enterprise-grade AI search capabilities
- Demonstrates real-world scalability through film festival platform
- Positions Sia as a viable alternative to IPFS
-
Expands Sia’s market presence:
- Strengthens position in the media streaming sector
- Opens new use cases for professional content creators
- Provides benchmarks for enterprise-level storage solutions
- Attracts Web3 developers through documented integrations
-
Increases adoption through:
- Integration with MetaMask’s 30M+ monthly active users
- Professional filmmaker community engagement
- Enterprise-ready distributed database solutions
- Open-source tools for Sia integration
-
Benefits from Fabstir ecosystem (not part of grant):
- Fabstir’s Non-Multiplex Cinema film platform brings offchain users to onchain
- Fabstir’s decentralised subscription models bring the entertainment industry to the Media Player
- Fabstir’s customisable media streaming platforms enable third parties to bring further adoption to Sia
Risks
-
Technical risks:
- S5 network performance under concurrent load is untested at scale
- Integration complexity between OrbitDB and S5 streams
- MetaMask Snaps marketplace approval timeline uncertainties
- AI model integration complexity with distributed storage
-
Operational risks:
- GPU cloud costs may fluctuate based on market demand
- Resource allocation for concurrent transcoding loads
- Timeline dependencies on third-party security audits
- Initial user adoption rate uncertainties
-
Mitigation strategies:
- Comprehensive testing framework implementation
- Staged rollout of features with monitoring
- Regular communication with the S5 author Redsolver
- Flexible architecture allowing for rapid adjustments