Project Name: Dartsia Explorer
Name of the organization or individual submitting the proposal: Dartsia LLC
Describe your project
Dartsia — Blockchain Explorer and Network Intelligence Platform for Sia
Dartsia is an open-source exploration and analytics platform designed to bridge the observability gap in the Sia ecosystem. It consolidates block data, transaction history, and storage host metrics into a unified, mobile-first interface.
Current State (Live at explorer.dartsia.app ) A production-ready foundation is already operational, demonstrating our capability to deliver:
- Advanced Indexing : Real-time block and transaction tracking (V1/V2) with a BullMQ-powered backend.
- Host Intelligence : Global host scanning with geographic mapping, uptime tracking, and performance gauges.
- Mobile-First UX : A fully responsive interface with global search for hashes, blocks, and public keys.
Planned Features & Roadmap This grant will evolve Dartsia into a shared infrastructure hub for the community:
- Economic Analytics : Dashboards for network revenue, pricing oracles, and locked collateral trends.
- Public REST API : A key-free API and documentation portal to empower other Sia developers.
- Deep Diagnostics : Integration of the Foundation’s troubleshootd for protocol-level host probing (RHP4).
- Protocol Parity : Continuous alignment with Sia V2 hardforks and native RHP4 data structures.
Summary Dartsia replaces fragmented tools with a professional “source of truth.” By making Sia’s on-chain activity both legible and programmable, we provide the transparency necessary for a truly functional decentralized storage market.
Who benefits from your project?
Sia Renters : Users looking to store data on the network can use Dartsia to discover the most reliable and cost-effective hosts. They benefit from transparent pricing (SC/TB/month) and geographic distribution data, allowing them to optimize their storage redundancy across different regions and providers.
Sia Hosts (Storage Providers) : Service providers can use the platform as a professional diagnostic tool. The integration with troubleshootd and RHP4 scanning helps them verify their node’s performance, latency, and connectivity from an external perspective, ensuring their configuration is correctly seen by the network.
DApp Developers & Wallets : By providing a public, high-performance REST API, Dartsia significantly lowers the barrier to entry for building on Sia. Developers can fetch network stats, transaction histories, and host lists without the overhead of running and maintaining their own complex indexing infrastructure.
Ecosystem Researchers & Analysts : The network analytics dashboard provides a “source of truth” for the protocol’s health. Analysts can track total network revenue, collateral trends, fee fluctuations, and contract activity, enabling data-driven reporting on the adoption of the Sia decentralized cloud.
The Sia Community & Newcomers : A clean, accessible, mobile-first interface makes the Sia protocol less “opaque” to the general public. It provides a professional-grade window into the network’s daily operations, comparable to the high-quality explorers found in other major blockchain ecosystems (like Etherscan or Solscan).
How does the project serve the Foundation’s mission of user-owned data?
- Informed Sovereignty : We provide the transparency (geography, pricing, RHP4 connectivity) necessary for users to make sovereign choices about who stores their data, rather than relying on a centralized “black box.”
- Verification over Trust : True ownership requires auditability. Dartsia allows users to independently verify block production, host proofs, and contract lifecycles without needing to trust a middleman.
Ecosystem Catalyst : By making Sia’s complex data programmable, we lower the barrier for others to build decentralized apps, further expanding the reach of user-owned data.
We cannot provide grants to residents of jurisdictions under increased FATF monitoring, those that have active OFAC sanctions, or those that fail our bank compliance tests. We also cannot provide grants if your payment bank account is located in those same locations. Please review the following list.
Are you a resident of any jurisdiction on that list? No
Will your payment bank account be located in any jurisdiction on that list? No
Grant Specifics
Amount of money requested and justification with a reasonable breakdown of expenses:
Total Amount Requested: $18450 USD
1. Engineering & Feature Development ($15,000)
This amount covers both the core platform already delivered and the intensive 3-month roadmap for advanced features.
- Initial Core Infrastructure (Delivered) : Development of the baseline NestJS/React stack, real-time block indexer, transaction classifier, and mobile-first interface.
- Advanced Analytics & Oracle Engine : Implementation of high-performance SQL aggregators for network-wide storage revenue, collateral trends, and price oracles.
- Service Integration : Embedding the troubleshootd API and RHP4 probing into the Dartsia scanning worker for advanced diagnostics.
- Public REST API : Building a scalable, versioned API with modern documentation (OpenAPI) and rate-limiting to serve the global Sia community.
2. Infrastructure & Operations — 12-Month Coverage ($2,250)
Provision for hosting the complete Sia network observability stack ($187.50/month).
- Sia explored & troubleshootd Hosting: Dedicated resources to maintain persistent instances of the official explored indexer and the Foundation’s troubleshooting API.
- Dartsia API & Database : High-availability hosting for the PostgreSQL database (optimized for blockchain data) and the NestJS backend.
- Public API Bandwidth : Coverage for data transfer costs associated with providing a key-free, high-performance API to the Sia ecosystem.
3. Documentation, Security & Maintenance ($1,200)
- Developer Support : Ongoing maintenance of the public documentation and technical support for community developers.
- Protocol Alignment : Ensuring the platform and API stay updated with Sia protocol changes, hardforks, and official tool updates for a full year.
What is the high-level architecture overview for the grant? What security best practices are you following? Please review our Development Guide for further details.
Dartsia is designed as a modular, decoupled system to ensure scalability and ease of maintenance. The architecture follows a “Sidecar Indexer” pattern where the backend enhances raw blockchain data with specialized analytics and host diagnostics.
1. Client Applications
- Web & Mobile (Responsive Web App) : A React 18 frontend built with Vite and TypeScript. It uses TanStack Query for efficient data synchronization and Leaflet for geographic host visualization. The UI is designed with a mobile-first approach, using shared components optimized for both desktop and small-screen touch interactions.
2. Backend Servers
- Explorer API (NestJS) : The main entry point for the frontend and public developers. It provides versioned REST endpoints, handles caching, and enforces authentication.
- Worker Engine (BullMQ) : A dedicated background process that handles heavy lifting:
* Block Indexer : Sequentially processes blocks from the explored API.
* Host Scanner : Periodically probes the network and resolves IP geolocation.
* Analytics Aggregator : Generates time-series data for the network dashboard.
3. Databases & Storage
- PostgreSQL : The primary relational store. It uses JSONB columns to store raw Sia transaction data, allowing for flexible indexing of both V1 and V2 protocol structures without rigid schema migrations.
- Redis : Acting as both the message broker for BullMQ and a high-speed cache for frequently requested data (like the chain tip and network statistics).
4. Proxies & Middleware
- Nginx : Acts as a reverse proxy and static file server. It handles SSL termination (HTTPS), gzip compression, and routes traffic between the frontend and backend services.
5. Third-Party Integrations
- Sia explored: The primary source of truth for all blockchain-native data.
- Sia troubleshootd: Used as a specialized external probe to verify host reachability via RHP2/3/4.
- GeoIP-lite : Local database used to resolve host IP addresses into geographic coordinates without relying on external tracking APIs.
6. Communication
- Internal : Components communicate via a shared Redis bus (BullMQ) and standard TypeORM database connections.
- External (API) : All client-server communication happens over HTTPS/TLS via JSON-based REST calls.
Security Best Practices
Dartsia adheres to industry-standard security protocols to protect network data and service integrity:
- Credential Management : No secrets, database strings, or API keys are committed to version control. Configuration is handled strictly through Environment Variables (.env), which are injected at runtime via Docker secrets or secure CI/CD pipelines.
- Input Validation & Sanitization : All API inputs (such as search queries and pagination parameters) are validated using class-validator in NestJS and sanitized to prevent SQL injection or Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).
- Access Control : The backend implements an API Key (X-API-KEY) mechanism to protect write operations and sensitive diagnostic endpoints. Public data is rate-limited to prevent Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.
- Secure Communication : All production traffic is forced over HTTPS (TLS 1.3). Communication with the Sia node and troubleshootd is performed over private or encrypted channels wherever possible.
- Dependency Management : We utilize automated tools (npm audit) to regularly scan for vulnerabilities in our dependency tree. The project maintains a flat dependency structure to minimize supply chain risks.
- Container Security : Docker images are built using multi-stage builds to ensure that development tools and source code are not present in the final, production-ready image, reducing the attack surface.
Development Process Compliance
We commit to following the Sia Foundation’s development workflow:
- Atomic Pull Requests : Every milestone task will be implemented in a dedicated branch and merged via a focused PR.
- Reporting: Monthly progress reports will include the standardized table linking tasks to specific PRs and testing instructions.
- Documentation : README files in both repositories will be maintained with up-to-date build instructions, ensuring the code remains testable by reviewers at every step.
Timeline with measurable objectives and goals. REQUIRED: Milestones with which to judge your progress. Milestones should be easy for the Grants Committee to understand and evaluate as your project moves through its term. The Committee reserves the right to accept, modify, or reject proposed milestones to ensure they represent thoughtful and reasonable project evaluation checkpoints. Further payments may be withheld for missed milestones.
Milestone 1: Advanced Host Diagnostics & Connectivity (Month 1)
Goal: Leverage official Sia Foundation tools to provide definitive host health metrics.
- Task 1.1: troubleshootd Integration
- Deploy a dedicated troubleshootd instance.
- Implement a background worker to probe the host fleet via the RHP4, RHP3, and RHP2 protocols.
- Task 1.2: Enhanced Diagnostic UI
- Update Host Detail pages to show a protocol-level connectivity matrix (SiaMux, QUIC, TCP).
- Display handshake latency benchmarks and software version history.
- Task 1.3: Real-time Connection Monitoring
- Add a “Live Probe” button for hosts to self-diagnose their connectivity from an external vantage point.
Measurable Objective: 100% of hosts in the registry have a protocol-specific connectivity status (RHP2/3/4) instead of a simple “Online/Offline” label.
Milestone 2: Network Intelligence & Economic Dashboard (Month 2)
Goal: Translate raw blockchain data into actionable economic signals for renters and researchers.
- Task 2.1: Economic Aggregation Engine
- Implement high-performance SQL aggregators to compute total locked collateral, total miner fees, and estimated storage revenue per epoch.
- Task 2.2: Price Oracle & Trends
- Create a “Price Oracle” module that calculates median and average storage/bandwidth pricing trends over 30/60/90 days.
- Task 2.3: Contract Lifecycle Analytics
- Build a dashboard tracking the rate of contract formations versus storage proof success rates at a network-wide level.
Measurable Objective: A new “Analytics” section on the website featuring at least 4 live charts showing historical pricing and revenue trends.
Milestone 3: Public API & V2 Protocol Parity (Month 3)
Goal: Transition Dartsia from a standalone tool to a piece of shared ecosystem infrastructure.
- Task 3.1: Public REST API Launch
- Open /api/v1/ for public, unauthenticated (rate-limited) access.
- Support endpoints for block/TX lookup and host filtering by region and price.
- Task 3.2: Developer Portal & Documentation
- Deploy interactive Swagger/OpenAPI documentation.
- Provide code samples for easy integration by third-party developers.
- Task 3.3: Full V2 Protocol Support
- Update indexer logic to handle V2 transaction types, V2 contract structures, and RHP4-native host settings natively.
Measurable Objective: Documentation is live at /api/docs, and the API handles at least 10 requests per second under load testing.
Project Maintenance (Month 4 to Month 15)
- Sustained Infrastructure : 12-month commitment to hosting the Dartsia stack, including the explored and troubleshootd sidecars.
- Protocol Alignment : Regular updates to ensure compatibility with Sia Gf (V2) hardforks and official CLI updates.
- Security Patches : Continuous monitoring of dependencies and API security.
Summary of Delivery
| Phase | Duration | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|
| Milestone 1 | Month 1 | Protocol-level host diagnostics UI and troubleshootd backend. |
| Milestone 2 | Month 2 | Economic dashboard (Revenue, Collateral, Pricing Trends). |
| Milestone 3 | Month 3 | Public API, OpenAPI Documentation, and V2 Parity. |
| Operations | Months 4-15 | Guaranteed hosting, maintenance, and protocol updates. |
Potential risks that will affect the outcome of the project:
- Sia V2 Transition Complexity (handling hardforks and new data formats).
- Hardware Resource Saturation (indexing storage and scalability costs).
- Network Desynchronization (difficulty maintaining real-time sync during volume spikes).
- PostgreSQL Performance Bottlenecks (slow analytical queries on large datasets).
- Go Engine Maintenance Overhead (complexity in updating the
exploredcore). - Operating Budget Overruns (increasing VPS infrastructure costs).
Development Information
Will all of your project’s code be open-source?
All the code will be open source.
Leave a link where code will be accessible for review.
Frontend : DartSiaProject/explorer-frontend · GitHub
Backend : DartSiaProject/explorer-backend · GitHub
Do you agree to submit monthly progress reports?
Yes, I agree
Contact info
Email: