Smart contracts don't execute themselves
Ethereum and other EVM blockchains are not functionally complete, and in particular do not offer any method for event-triggered or chronologically-contingent actions, triggered by on-chain events or time conditions so that contracts can be reliably executed automatically at the appropriate times from inside any EVM contract. Almost every EVM-compatible DeFi protocol should use a decentralised Keeper network external to the protocol to execute transactions on-chain for its correct operation. Historically, in the absence of such an option, many leading protocols resorted to ‘rolling their own’ internal specialised ‘bots’ to provide automation. But this ‘kludge’ is not decentralised or credibly-neutral, and creates single points of failure, especially RPC-related failures due to a lack of diversification of RPC connections.
Early DeFi protocols developed on Ethereum were designed to be supplemented by pseudo-anonymous agents known as keepers. The name probably originated in Chainlink, derived from the term ‘upkeep’ for tasks that had to be done to maintain updated state. The nodes assigned to do ‘upkeep’ became known as ‘keepers’. Such internally-developed agents performed event-triggered actions such as liquidating under-collateralized positions in MakerDAO/Compound/AAVE or re-aligning ever-changing prices across AMM pools via arbitrage. Agents acting as keepers were a method for making early DeFi primitives more useful and less manual. But these first-generation keepers were generally triggered only by sufficient economic incentives (significant arbitrage price differences, liquidation premiums, etc). They therefore typically extracted disproportionate value from the client protocols and their users.
The advent of PowerAgent v.2 means that now any protocol, or indeed any user on an increasing number of EVM L1 ledgers and L2 scaling layers can access highly-available, trustworthy, autonomous, decentralised automation network services that provide an entirely new range of credibly-nuetral services to end users. Outsourcing automation tasks to the PowerAgent network reduces points of failure and trust issues, and also speeds development, audits & de-bugging, increasing transparency and speeding time to market. PowerPool’s PowerAgent v. 2 is the first such generalised EVM automation network to be available to support the (multi-chain) operation of next-generation composable DeFi protocols in a way that is totally consistent with the ethos of Ethereum and the EVM ecosystem spreading across L1 chains and L2 layers. We call our unique approach to adding automation and off-chain compute to the EVM ecosystem ‘canonical’ automation, to differentiate PowerAgent from closed-source, whitelisted heavyweight nodes that are not very decentralised or credibly neutral.
The continued evolution of DeFi 2 and other automation use cases will require ever more autonomous automation to perform routine on-chain tasks not necessarily motivated by large incentives. We expect that DeFi will continue to demand ever broader, more reliable, more efficient, more trustworthy and less expensive automation/off-chain compute solutions, dramatically expanding the role of PowerAgent Keepers towards becoming more generalized ‘Automation Agent Networks.’
Value Proposition - PowerAgent Automation Network
PowerAgent Automation Network is a fully-distributed, open source system for automating smart contract calls, allowing the protocols to execute routine tasks such as harvesting rewards, compounding them, updating pool weights, and generally any other necessary on-chain activity automatically. The PowerAgent Network is one of PowerPool’s key innovations, and is the leading open source EVM-compatible trustworthy automation agent network. Not only Ethereum, but almost all EVM chains lack options to hard code for an event to occur at a specific time or event/condition. The closest historical analogue to PowerAgent is Andre Cronje’s KP3R Network.
Other Auxiliary Service Networks (ASNs) networks like ChainLink and Gelato offer some overlapping services in terms of automation and off-chain computation, but neither is open source, permissionless and fully-decentralised with slashing penalties for failed execution like PowerAgent. This means they cannot offer credibly neutral and trustworthy automation/computation services. Neither is especially focussed on just automation and off-chain compute.
The PowerAgent Automation Network is developed and operated by PowerPool DAO on behalf of its independent Community of Keeper node runners, most of whom also operate validator nodes on one or more EVM chains. PowerAgent node software is already bundled into DAppNode, and can be run together with DVT, LST and LRT clients on many EVM chains. Adding PowerAgent Keeper nodes to EVM POS validators offers maximum ROI on validator hardware/bandwidth, requirements for which can be modest on many chains/layers.
PowerAgent network uses a variety of Job Owner selected options (usually based on estimated cost of no execution for the job.) such as random Keeper selection, level of Keeper $CVP stake that can be slashed on failure to execute, and others. If the randomly-selected Keeper misses the transaction, another Keeper can sign it instead, and slash 10% of the first nominated Keeper’s stake (5% is signing Keeper’s profit, 5% goes to the Community pool). PowerAgent uses the Powerpool cross-chain $CVP tokens for Keeper staking as ‘skin in the game’, and the Job Owner via the network provides gas compensation to the signing Keeper for automating transactions reliably.
PowerAgent Network recieves Jobs via its web UI (for example - harvest rewards from Sushi staking, update pool weights according to some sort of strategy, get TWAP prices for selected tokens, update stable PowerVault composition every N days according to specified on-chain metrics, etc.
PowerPool DAO also provides independent developers opportunities to code automation service templates that use PowerAgent to offer services to individuals, as well as other protocols, even AI. The PowerPool DAppStore will provide trustworthy wallet connection UI for independently-developed and maintained Templates that can pay micro-royalties swept directly into developer wallets.
PowerPool eventually plans to offer asset managers actively-managed automated multi-token PowerBaskets, auto farmed for intrinsic, optimised extrinsic yield, and multi-chain peg arbitrage. PowerAgent can automate any on-chain activity needed for active investment management, especially management of base layer collateral products like diversified LST/LRT baskets.
Jobs are classified into two categories:
Interval Jobs that are executed periodically at given time intervals (do something every dT)
Resolver Jobs' execution is based on arbitrary on-chain logic rather than on time intervals (ex., if x>y, do this; if y<x, do that; if y=x, do nothing).
There are 3 main categories of Jobs currently supported by PowerAgent at launch: