Space and Time secures 8x friendlier rates with Global Enterprise data profile

Petar Stoykov

December 12, 2023 in Customer stories

Powering smart contracts and enterprises with trustless data processing.

Chainstack’s exceptional infrastructure complements our Proof of SQL technology, allowing us to set new standards in data integrity and scalability in the Web3 ecosystem.
Space and Time Team

Data is now more valuable than oil, making its availability, security, and integrity crucial for businesses, governments, and institutions. Whether it’s for designing smart cities, disrupting industries, or advancing the frontier of Web3 applications, information powers everything. This very belief propelled the birth of Space and Time (SxT), an ambitious project aimed at providing an all-encompassing solution for decentralized data warehousing.

Engineered to meet the colossal data demands of today and tomorrow, Space and Time epitomizes the blend of art and science. Powering smart contracts and enterprises with trustless data processing, SxT is delivering enormous value using their state-of-the-art zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology—Proof of SQL.

Testament to their technology prowess is the trust laid in them by the most esteemed financial institutions and enterprises like Microsoft, NVIDIA, and AWS, as well as notable Web3 protocols, such as Chainlink, Polygon, and Avalanche. Let’s shed light on SxT’s journey with us and how they satisfied their particular need for blockchain data, setting off on a pioneering course across Web3.

Why Space and Time chose Chainstack as its infrastructure partner

When we first interacted with the visionary team at Space and Time, we had an inkling that it was the start of something special. Driven by the pursuit of decentralizing data warehousing, they were already exploring various data providers, analyzing their features and performance, with the intent of identifying the most suitable partner.

They had a keen eye for detail and high expectations, fueled by their rich expertise in the field. The ultimate goal was to find a robust and reliable data provider capable of supporting the versatile blockchain needs of Space and Time, particularly those related to the DeFi and GameFi verticals.

The pre-existing challenges they faced paved the way to our fruitful work together. They grappled with ensuring uptime and performance, especially during periods of high load times. There were also occasional concerns due to downtime of Avalanche nodes impacting their indexing services.

That is when Chainstack stepped up to play a vital role in resolving these challenges with our robust Global infrastructure and the ability to handle high-volume archive requests across multiple chains. Recognizing the immense potential and value proposition of Space and Time, we focused on providing customizable and scalable solutions, adding another dimension to their operations.

The transparency and responsiveness we provided only deepened their trust in us. As real partners, we valued their feedback and used it to optimize our own services.

The result? A robust, foolproof solution that could handle high-demand scenarios without significant downtime that resonated with Space and Time’s vision. This is evidenced by the active ongoing use of the solution for managing their nodes and addressing scenarios with high demand.

Space and Time on Chainstack in numbers

Our collaboration with Space and Time is a story, not merely of our services and their solutions, but of numbers that tell a tale of extraordinary achievement in the Web3 domain. To just throw numbers at you wouldn’t do justice to this incredible journey. Instead, let’s weave them into a tale that truly encapsulates the synergy between Chainstack and Space and Time.

We begin with a pointer towards our ongoing work—15 active Global nodes that together form the bedrock of their operations. Across diverse protocols such as Ethereum, Polygon, Aptos, and Avalanche, we’ve provided secure, stable, and efficient services, firm in the knowledge that each node acts as a powerful instrument in the Space and Time decentralized continuum.

Digging deeper, we see the story unfold globally. From Ashburn to Amsterdam, from France to London, we witness the marks of our collaboration. Ashburn claimed the lion’s share with 10.7B requests, followed by France in second place with 1.8B.

Now, if we shift the focus to protocols, some impressive figures come to light. Leading the pack was Polygon with 10.6B requests. Not far behind was Ethereum, claiming 2.5B requests. Avalanche saw the processing of a sizable 303.6M requests, underscoring the cross-chain span of our partnership.

What’s more, imagine the compelling amount of archive node requests successfully processed—11.9B to date, with roughly 1.9B Request Units (RUs) in just October and November alone. Over these last couple of months, Space and Time has successfully allocated archive RUs with an almost even split between the eth_getBalance and eth_getTransactionReceipt methods.

Figure 1: Space and Time archive node RU allocation OCT-NOV

That being said, add to that picture another 1.5B full node requests processed so far and 150M RUs during the last two months. Much like their archive counterparts, Space and Time’s full node RUs were put to the eth_getBalance and eth_getTransactionReceipt methods but they claimed a much smaller share of around 14% and 17% respectively. In turn, eth_call showed greater dominance claiming the large majority of these RUs with its 64% slice of the pie.

Figure 2: Space and Time full node RU allocation OCT-NOV

Now, let’s do some quick math and average out the RU data from these two months, so we can get a rough usage estimate for a monthly basis. We can then use these RU forecasts with our pricing calculator to get a better understanding of just how Space and Time gets to spend less, while using more with Chainstack.

When we draw the bottom line, SxT would’ve been faced with a significant final monthly bill of just over $30K, should they had opted for an equivalent service with Alchemy and a staggering $140K+ with QuickNode. In contrast, their total infrastructure spend for the full 8+ months journey they’ve had with us as Enterprise customer is on par with that of a single month’s invoice from Alchemy.

Such monumental differences only serve to highlight just how cost-efficient Chainstack nodes really are and the financial resources that they liberate to be put to better use than overpaying for RPCs. If we look at the numbers, there’s a mind-blowing discrepancy of 8x to 32x, regardless in who’s favor they are rounded.

Figure 3: Space and Time data profile price comparison; Source: Chainstack

What is Space and Time?

At its core, Space and Time (SxT) is the verifiable compute layer for Web3—an objective it accomplishes through the potent confluence of zero-knowledge proofs and a decentralized data warehouse. The foundational cornerstone of this architecture is SxT’s novel ZK-proof, known as Proof of SQL. This revolutionary innovation ascertains the truthfulness of computations performed at scale, providing a solid guarantee that the resultant query hasn’t been tampered with.

SxT offers a large array of services that target the integral needs of Web3 developers. For instance, it provides a connection with the blockchain data indexed from notable protocols, in addition to other relevant off-chain data.

Developers can use SxT’s platform to transform and shape data using SQL, catering to specific business schema definitions. Moreover, they can employ SxT to create APIs and dashboards, send verifiable data to smart contracts, and facilitate seamless scaling, even when dealing with terabytes of data and thousands of simultaneous queries or requests.

Figure 4: Space and Time Verifiable Compute Layer; Source: Space and Time

Its solution extends beyond sheer SQL execution, however. SxT preloads blockchain data from prominent chains like Ethereum, Polygon, Sui, Avalanche, Sei, and allows developers to augment it with their off-chain datasets. This data, obtainable from any source—be it game servers, databases, data warehouses, or applications—can be queried at will.

The resultant query can be published to new API endpoints, allowing developers to drive low-latency access for their DApps. Add to this the unparalleled guarantee of trust that SxT’s Proof of SQL provides, the future of Web3 appears secure, optimized, and well within reach.

SxT is more than a platform; it’s a solution—an ecosystem that encapsulates evolutionary tools for the world of Web3. It is an embodiment of progress—one project, one query, and one proof at a time.

Bringing it all together

In conclusion, Space and Time’s collaboration with us exemplifies the impactful results that can be obtained by leveraging Chainstack’s robust Global infrastructure. This helped enable SxT to adeptly navigate the complexities of blockchain data management, ensuring high uptime and performance even under demanding scenarios.

This synergy has not only met SxT’s specific needs but has also set a benchmark in decentralized data warehousing. With impressive usage metrics and global reach, our partnership highlights what can really be achieved when visionary technology meets cutting-edge infrastructure, paving the way for further innovation across Web3 and beyond.