Rocket Rescue Node 2026 H1 Renewal
What work from the previous proposal was completed?
No major changes
What work from the previous proposal is ongoing or pending?
No ongoing work aside from maintenance.
What work was not originally planned, but completed, if any?
- Some code changes to use multicall3 to improve rescue-proxy startup times (as mentioned in the previous grant)
- Small changes to adapt to ethereum hardforks
What work is newly slated since the previous proposal?
No new work planned, except for some observability/metrics things @Snocones may or may not work on
Are the results of this project entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts are not, and why not?
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AGPLv3
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rescue-proxy
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guarded-beacon-proxy
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rescue-api
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MIT
- rescue-ui
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Closed Source
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infrastructure
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secrets
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As a reminder, the infrastructure and secrets libraries are closed source, the former out of an abundance of caution, and the latter as a requirement. We don’t believe either of these to be a hindrance to a third party wishing to modify or run the service themselves.
Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate
What metrics can you share on the success of the project?
The dashboard remains viewable at https://stats.rescuenode.com/
At the time of writing, 7 node operators with 128 minipools are using the rescue node. Four solo stakers with 75 validators are connected.
Access has been requested 3544 times, 3320 times by Rocket Pool NOs and 224 times by solo stakers.
This corresponds to 167 solo stakers and 1208 node operators.
In less specific terms, how has this project improved the Rocket Pool ecosystem or benefited the Ethereum ecosystem?
We continue to believe the project offers a safety net which helps differentiate Rocket Pool from other staking protocols and attract node operators.
Team
Who has done the work, and have there been any changes to the team?
No changes to the maintainers:
- Ken
- Poupas
- Patches
- Yorick
No new contributors, but thank you to our past contributors (sno, trainface, et al) and collaborators (dmccartney, hanniabu, sleety)
How have the individual constituents of the team been compensated?
Maintenance continues to be pro-bono.
EthStaker pays the hardware costs and is in turn the recipient of the funds from the GMC.
How has maintenance been performed since the delivery of the project?
Sporadically, as needed, and pro-bono.
Payment and Verification
Have the acceptance criteria been met?
We believe so.
What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting? Does this differ from the original approved amount?
In the days leading up to Pectra, we sunset our existing infrastructure and leased new hardware compatible with running supernodes. Since the rescue node can be used by anyone, it needs to custody all blob subnets. This meant upgrading to 4TB SSD baremetals.
Our operational costs are now $687.50 a month.
Is there a measurable Return on Investment for the project?
Please see previous applications for the cost/benefit analyses, which have not materially changed since the start of the project. I have still never observed the rescue node operating at a loss to the protocol.
What is the breakdown of spending on development for the original grant vs. maintenance?
100% of ongoing funds continue to be put towards reimbursing costs.
Conflict of Interest
Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).
I can make a full list of my engagements in the ethereum / crypto ecosystems available to the GMC, but I have none to disclose that would impact my ability to work on the rescue node.
Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?
No