APP-AM18EMYC-8RAC4W — Ankr - Filecoin Public Endpoint Infrastructure

1.1 Project Name: Ankr - Filecoin Public Endpoint Infrastructure 1.2 Project Github: https://github.com/filecoin-project/lotus https://github.com/ChainSafe/forest (upstream OSS) Internal routing & monitoring stack (Shark): closed-source hosted service 1.3 Project Website: https://www.ankr.com/rpc/filecoin/ 1.4 Team Lead/Point of Contact: Nelson Noon - Account Executive, Existing Slack Group 1.5 Category: Core Infrastructure Contributing to Core Infrastructure?: Ankr operates one of the largest publicly available Filecoin JSON-RPC endpoints on the network, currently serving approximately 250,000 API calls per hour from application builders, wallet providers, bridges, and indexers. We run and maintain full Lotus and Forest nodes, applying upstream patches and security updates on a continuous basis. Any consumer relying on Filecoin RPC access without running their own node is a potential dependent. 1.6 Open Source Status: Partial Open Source Context: The node software Ankr operates is fully open source: Lotus (filecoin-project/lotus) and Forest (ChainSafe/forest). These codebases are maintained by their respective upstream communities, and Ankr contributes by running them at production scale and surfacing operational feedback. The internal orchestration layer, "SharkOS", encompasses Ankr's proprietary RPC routing, load balancing, rate-limiting, telemetry, and monitoring stack. Shark is a hosted service, not a product Ankr ships or licenses. It is closed source for the same reasons any hosted infrastructure platform keeps its operations layer proprietary: it encodes multi-chain routing logic that spans 50+ networks, and open-sourcing it without substantial de-coupling would expose infrastructure that serves far beyond Filecoin. This approach is consistent with the Filecoin Network's objective of growing a healthy, commercially viable infrastructure layer . Ankr's hosted model lowers the barrier for developers who cannot or should not need to run their own node. 2.1 Project Summary: This grant funds Ankr's continued operation and improvement of its public Filecoin JSON-RPC endpoint, a piece of critical read/write infrastructure currently serving ~250,000 API calls per hour to a broad cross-section of ecosystem participants. Ankr runs production Lotus and Forest nodes with a proprietary routing and observability layer that provides reliability, geographic redundancy, and developer-friendly access. The specific gap this addresses is the absence of a fully free, high-availability, multi-region RPC tier for Filecoin whereas most alternative providers are either paid, rate-limited, or single-region. Grant funding will cover node infrastructure costs and engineering time to maintain capacity, publish a public status page, improve documentation, and ensure the service remains sustainable for the duration of the grant period and beyond. In order to maintain capacity and continue to operate, Ankr will descale the cluster set (3 clusters distributed globally) to ensure the Filecoin network is operating functionally to meet network demand and throughput capacity. 2.2 Who does this work support?: Pods, Onramps, Storage Providers, Application Builders, Application Users, Network Infrastructure, Network Governance 2.3 Total Funding Requested (USD): $28,000 (12 Month Contract) 2.4 Milestones & Budget: {"title":"Baseline Hardening & Observability","description":"Upgraded Lotus/Forest node cluster; public status page; latency/availability SLA report published. Clusters optimized and sized to 3 standing.","dueDate":"2026-07-31","fundingRequested":"$28,000","completionCriteria":"Upon renewal of contract, nodes will be synced into load balanced/monitored into 3 clusters, public status page supported and SLAs implemented","milestoneUID":"0x0ef4dd2c20874056d7cc7ea565fca543afe87f8c50245d750731960ebb0fae4d"}, {"title":"Sustainability, Ongoing Maintenance & Reporting","description":"Ongoing maitenance ensuring network continues to remain stable and up to date.","dueDate":"2026-12-31","fundingRequested":"$0","completionCriteria":"Throughout the duration of the contract: network upgrades will be implemented, monitoring (ensuring uptime and SLAs), impact reports delivered, improved documentation. This will be an extension of ongoing maitenance for the remainder of the year.","milestoneUID":"0x9e45621e61f29f475bcd29fde7950f9d9127b5e4733c2db4fa3652e28a75c840"} Objective 1: Indirect Objective 2: Indirect Objective 3: Indirect 3.1 Impact pathway: Output Ankr maintains a highly available, multi-region Filecoin JSON-RPC endpoint serving ~250k calls/hour. Milestones include a public status page, improved docs, and an annual impact report. Outcome Developers building on Filecoin have a free, reliable, well-documented RPC option. Integration time and infrastructure overhead drop for new entrants. Existing consumers — wallets, bridges, indexers — continue operating without disruption. Impact A larger and more diverse set of applications can reach the Filecoin network without running their own node. This directly expands the pool of potential deal-making clients and active network users, moving the needle on flagship client adoption and onchain deal volume. 3.2 Verification metrics: Monthly RPC request volume (Filecoin) -Aggregate JSON-RPC call count across all Filecoin endpoints per calendar month Endpoint uptime (rolling 30-day) - % of 5-minute intervals with successful response from ≥1 region Unique consumer projects / integrations - Count of distinct projects that self-identify as using Ankr Filecoin RPC Median JSON-RPC response latency - p50 latency in ms across regions 3.3 References: N/A 4.4 Core Team: Stanley Wu - CTO, previously 4th founding engineer of AWS and quickly became Senior SDM L7 right under the AWS CTO before founding Ankr. Mikhail Kondratev - Senior Product Manager/Platform Lead, responsible for Filecoin node implementation and ongoing maitenance. Arsalan Evini - Head of BD, Spearheading everything related to business development and partnerships 4.5 Has your team received a ProPGF grant or funding from PLFIF before?: Yes 5.1 Key risks & dependencies: **Technical Risks** Upstream node software (Lotus / Forest) introduces breaking changes or consensus incompatibilities that require emergency engineering response. Mitigation: Ankr tracks upstream release candidates and maintains a staging cluster for pre-production testing before deploying to production. Network upgrades (e.g., hard forks, actor migrations) require coordinated downtime or rapid response. Mitigation: Ankr has an established process for network upgrade coordination across its multi-chain infrastructure and has successfully managed prior Filecoin network upgrades. **External Dependencies** This grant is structured around maintaining capacity while scaling down global coverage. There are no other dependencies as service health and uptime will be functional and tailored to network usage. **Team Risks** Key personnel changes; loss of the protocol engineer familiar with Filecoin node operations could delay milestone delivery. Mitigation: internal documentation (runbooks), cross-training, and the use of managed upstream OSS reduces single-person dependency. **Funding / Sustainability Risk** This grant covers one year. If a sustainable commercial model is not established before grant expiry, continuity beyond 12 months is uncertain.