Following the business workshop held last year, we identified a potential fee-based solution (described below) that can contribute to the sustainability of waku.

The aim of this issue is to investigate the viability of this solution, collect requirements and identify potential unknowns and issues.

At the moment, rln-relay participants stake some funds, ethers, when they register (send tx with some ether as the value to the membership contract). In our proposed solution, we suggest holding a portion of that fund as the registration fee in a pool of funds (similar to ENS before becoming a DAO). This amount will be potentially controlled by a multi-sign and is initially accessible by the Vac team. If later the decision is made to become a DAO, the fund can become accessible to all the members and spent as they vote and desire. The remaining portion will be reserved for slashing purposes as normal: if the user violates the message rate, it gets removed from the group and its funds get rewarded to the slasher.

To be investigated

[ ] What does it entail in terms of smart contract implementation e.g., multi-sig contract and its interaction points with the rln contract
[ ] Legal implications
[ ] Researching on a reasonable fee percentage, and its impact on the user attraction
[ ] How to spend the pool of funds

vacp2p / research

Charging fees in waku-rln-relay registration #96

To be investigated