Vision: Storage Deposits to be Ergonomic and Automatic

[shawntabrizi]

A repeating pattern within FRAME is to take a deposit from the user for any storage they place on chain. This provides an economic incentive for having a user clean up that data when it is no longer needed, and before the user's account is deleted.

However, currently, all of the mechanics of managing these storage deposits are custom and manual.

We want to create a system where:

• Storing data on behalf of a user automatically takes a fee from that user
  • Handles situations where the user may not have enough fees and errors gracefully
  • Automatically adjusts the fee needed based on the item being stored
• Allows a user to more easily track what fees are currently being reserved (named reserves may help)
• Allow a user to more easily clean up unwanted storage if they want to exit the system
• More easily update deposits from users as the deposit prices may change over time
• Potentially introduce a storage rent mechanic for specific storage items where we want to ensure they are cleaned up over a certain period of time

[stale[bot]]

Hey, is anyone still working on this? Due to the inactivity this issue has been automatically marked as stale. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[kianenigma]

All ideas named here are great; Some are things that we are tracking elsewhere too, such as #5591.

A rephrase:

• Integrate Consideration into FRAME storage types. Any storage map that keyed by account id would then charge deposit from that key based on the value.
• Idea: The Consideration can be configured to be somewhere on the spectrum of rent <> deposit. You might prefer paying more "rent" (a recurring payment, or else your storage might be freed) vs. a larger one-time deposit
• The deposit amount would be automatically exposed via a #4722
• Outcome:
  • Pallet developers don't have to deal with deposits anymore
  • DApp developers have a standard way to know how much deposit a dispatch might collect, and show it to users.