Tldr:

• Powerhouse provided an update on its product vision and development earlier this month, while the post below provides an overview of Powerhouse’s contributions to MakerDAO. One more update will come in a few weeks

• The RWA Reporting Tool completed a successful demo earlier this month to key stakeholders, highlighting the secure end-to-end flow for data input and publishing.

• A new version of the MakerDAO Expense Dashboard is in the works, built through Fusion, Powerhouse’s public dashboard application. This update also adds a roadmap section, Endgame information and additional integrations.

• Powerhouse is working on a new Atlas Editor as well as Governance AI Tools (GAIT) as part of the Endgame.

• This work is a proof of concept for a new architecture that comes with key advantages that make it easy to rapidly deploy new tools for optimizing organizational operations.

Powerhouse is an Ecosystem Actor for MakerDAO that was introduced in June 2023 when the former Sustainable Ecosystem Scaling Core Unit (SES) spun off. As SES and later Powerhouse, we have focused on providing operational support to MakerDAO, aligning with stakeholders to identify key needs and building open-source software tools to expedite and automate the process.

Since the passage of the Endgame, Powerhouse is focused on supporting the launch season and building new open-source operational tools for MakerDAO to maintain decentralization while incorporating new governance AI tooling. Powerhouse is developing this Universal DAO Toolkit to be used by all DAOs, but right now our focus is on supporting MakerDAO. This post aims to highlight recent work for MakerDAO and explain how the infrastructure used to build tools for MakerDAO allows for rapid development of additional operational and governance applications. Here’s an outline of what’s to come:

• RWA Reporting Tool

• Updated Maker expenses dashboard through Fusion

• Atlas Editor and Governance AI Tools (GAIT)

• Strengths of Using Powerhouse’s Document Models

As part of the upcoming launch season, BA Labs is building a new risk dashboard. A key component of that is making the information about the RWAs that back Dai transparent and easy to understand. It was also important that BA Labs could access machine-readable data to automate as much as possible. Powerhouse has built a tool for Arrangers of RWAs to provide detailed reports on the transactions made with the Dai principal.

The RWA Reporting Tool was built by Powerhouse in collaboration with BA Labs and will eventually utilize all four of Powerhouse’s applications.

• Renown for login and authentication

• Connect for arrangers to report details of RWAs

• Switchboard for easy data query in a GraphQL playground

• Fusion for community dashboards and data visualization

Figure 1: A workflow through Powerhouse’s four applications

MakerDAO governance requires transparency. The RWA Reporting provides this transparency through an end-to-end flow that captures structured data. Every time Arrangers update RWA information, Connect records each edit and ties it to an Ethereum signer. This creates a full and detailed audit history that anybody can use to view and verify the validity of the transactions. The document also has edit permissions set, such that only addresses designated by MakerDAO governance can make changes to a particular RWA document. This identity authentication happens through the Renown app using an Ethereum address. Renown assigns a decentralized identifier (DID) with verifiable credentials that control access to the document through decentralized infrastructure. Powerhouse worked closely with Ceramic to build this feature.

Powerhouse provided a successful product demo to key stakeholders earlier this month. Arrangers can engage in real-time collaboration in entering data in Connect through Powerhouse’s synchronization protocol. For BA Labs, they can access all of RWA data through Connect or through Switchboard, which provides a GraphQL interface for working with large sets of data.

Figure 2: An example of a RWA portfolio report on Connect

Figure 3: RWA Portfolio Report through Switchboard

In addition to viewing the RWA information, Powerhouse’s events-based architecture also enables a detailed revision history of what changes and who made them to the document. This revision history is similar to Google Docs but importantly, works without a centralized service provider. This structure also enables contributors to fork a document and work on their own branch, and even work locally before syncing.

Figure 4. Revision history for a sample RWA portfolio, with branch and location in the top right

Check out the demo video for a walk-through and see the real-time collaboration and synchronization in practice. The Powerhouse team continues to support BA Labs as it rolls out its transparency dashboard for launch season. In addition to working on the stability of the product and internal QA, we are also working on generating already existent RWA reports from the forum inside Connect, so that the data will also be instantly available in Switchboard.

Since its inception, Powerhouse has been bringing transparency to MakerDAO operations, and has been operating an Expenses Dashboard to provide granular details on where Maker is spending its Dai. This served as inspiration for Fusion, which is a public dashboard tool built on Powerhouse’s new architecture. Whereas before, the input to the Maker Expenses Dashboard was a manual collection of data in various formats, Fusion is designed to instantly create dashboards from structured data inputted through Connect.

Powerhouse is building a new dashboard with additional features to incorporate the Endgame structure around subDAOs. The updated site is not yet live, but we are building out additional functionality in addition to switching over to the new architecture.

Figure 5. Mockup of new homepage for MakerDAO on Fusion

With the document model structure Powerhouse uses, we can add additional information including integrating data from other platforms, such as the forum or the voting portal.

Figure 6. Mockup of new homepage for MakerDAO on Fusion

The new homepage for MakerDAO on Fusion also features a roadmap section where deliverables and milestones can be tracked and viewed by the community. This could be for MakerDAO, subDAOs or an Ecosystem Actor. This can integrate with a Scope of Work document model that kicks off an engagement, ensuring accountability.

Figure 7. Mockup of Roadmap section on Fusion

The new homepage for MakerDAO on Fusion also has an extensive section on Endgame with information and links for those looking to learn more. It’s intended to be updated as things progress, particularly in incorporating budget and finance information as it transitions to the new structure.

Figure 8. Mockup of Maker Endgame on Fusion

Powerhouse has also been preparing for the development of a MakerDAO Atlas editor to create a long-term repository for the Atlas. Currently, this work is done manually, but we are working to automate the process and integrate it into Powerhouse’s Connect App, with access and authentication being managed through Renown and governed by Maker governance.

This project aims to streamline the Drafters < → Reviewers reconciliation workflow and thus enhance research capabilities and improve the communication and operationalization of the Atlas. By increasing the legibility and adaptability of the Atlas, we ensure it remains true to its purpose while evolving with our ecosystem. Powerhouse’s events-based and git architecture makes it ideal for multiple stakeholders to collaborate together. Powerhouse is working closely with @LeBateleur to ensure the successful development and implementation of the software solution.

Powerhouse has continued to support Maker Governance AI Tooling (GAIT) product development. In collaboration with Jetstream and Pointable, Powerhouse is supporting the foundation of LLM tooling for MakerDAO. Powerhouse will be providing an update on the current milestone status, which is progressing quite well. The core system has been designed and implemented, and the present roadmap anticipates some LLM applications may be ready during the Launch Season Phases. \

The RWA Reporting Tool is the first proof-of-concept for Powerhouse’s new architecture that is powered by document models. This data structure undergirds Powerhouse’s core products, making it seamlessly integrated. The RWA Reporting Tool and soon the Atlas Editor are just the first tools that could be built using this architecture. Any business process can be built on top of this architecture, from grants programs to payroll to proposal collaboration.

Powerhouse’s architecture comes with five strengths:

1. Decentralization and Web 3 - identity and reputation are achieved through Ethereum addresses, while the storage adapters enable any decentralized data storage protocol to plug directly into Powerhouse.

2. Massive Scalability - Powerhouse uses the same design that enables Web2 scalability with built-in micro-services compatibility (SaaS), event-sourcing and utilizes a CQRS design pattern.

3. State of the Art UX Practices - Document model reducers enable user interaction modeling beyond state schemas and a Flux-like design pattern saves front-end developers time with easy integration with React.js.

4. Social Collaboration Primitives - Powerhouse achieves the best of Google Docs and Github with the centralization with document commit histories with branching and merging similar to git, and a distributed data ownership structure with real-time collaboration.

5. Reduction of cost and shorter time-to-market - Powerhouse is open-source and optimized for automation and AI. Reusable components allow developers to build applications quickly, while our Model-Driven Development approach enables low-code development.

These strengths will allow developers to build customized applications to streamline operations across DAOs and other open organizations. Powerhouse’s ironclad commitment to open-source software development means best practices of the most successful organizations can be deployed in new organizations starting from scratch.

This is the second of three update posts from Powerhouse. The first was focused on the Powerhouse product vision and the final post will discuss our future path to sustainability.

If you’re interested in learning more, jump into our discord, follow us on our (newly active) X/Twitter profile and check out our recently updated website