PORTERS.XYZ
From Decentralized RPC Gateway to Venture Studio: The PORTERS Post-Mortem 🔗 Pitch Deck
Overview
Section titled “Overview”PORTERS.XYZ was a decentralised RPC gateway project developed between April 2024 and May 2025. Designed to provide pay-per-use, schema-based RPC access across multiple chains, it supported production-grade infrastructure for dApps, DAO tooling, bridges, and gaming applications. The platform offered developers a reliable, usage-based billing layer with on-chain payment options and modular deployment for gateway operators.
Built by a small core team with contributions from the RaidGuild community, PORTERS grew rapidly to become the official RPC provider for several key projects and networks. Over time, however, changes in market conditions and profitability prompted a strategic pivot from infrastructure service to venture building.
Production Adoption
Section titled “Production Adoption”PORTERS infrastructure was actively used across a diverse set of production and pilot deployments:
- Taiko Labs: PORTERS was the official public RPC provider listed in Taiko’s developer documentation
- SmartInvoice.xyz: Integrated PORTERS for RPC infrastructure
- Ultimate Dominion: An on-chain RPG (demo video)
- Bitfinity Network: Partnership with Bitfinity network (see Bitfinity post)
- wPOKT Bridge: PORTERS supported cross-chain token transfers with RPC endpoints
- Token Name Service: Used PORTERS RPC endpoints
Relays Sold
Section titled “Relays Sold”PORTERS served over 240 million compute units across 15 networks, with over 221 million routed on Taiko Mainnet alone. The system averaged 2.5 million relays per day, with public data available via POKT Scan.
| Network | Compute Units Sold |
|---|---|
| Taiko Mainnet | 221,092,532 |
| Ethereum Mainnet | 11,802,508 |
| Hekla Testnet | 6,603,916 |
| Base Mainnet | 13,298 |
| Arbitrum One | 16,658 |
| Optimism Mainnet | 11,176 |
| Gnosis Chain | 16,044 |
| Polygon Mainnet | 6,598 |
| Sepolia Testnet | 5,060 |
| Holesky Testnet | 5,727 |
Usage Dashboard of Client Account
Section titled “Usage Dashboard of Client Account”
Funding & Recognition
Section titled “Funding & Recognition”PORTERS received over $350,000 in investment from ecosystem partners and infrastructure-focused funding programs. It was featured at major Web3 events, including:
- Demo: Gateway Configuration Walkthrough
- ETH Belgrade Talk: RPC Incentives and Builder UX
- RaidGuild Launch Announcement
- POKT Network Feature
- Backdrop Build Profile
- MetaMask Builder Night Replay (PORTERS at 55:54)
The credibility of the project was further validated by the trust of early adopters, and by inclusion in developer documentation and tooling lists of Ethereum L2 projects.
Winddown & Strategic Pivot
Section titled “Winddown & Strategic Pivot”Despite strong early traction and recognition, PORTERS was discontinued in Q2 2025. The decision followed an internal review prompted by three critical observations:
- Market Consolidation: The decentralised RPC space became increasingly crowded, with large players doubling-down and driving prices toward unsustainable margins.
- Profitability Ceiling: Serving usage-based RPC at scale proved low-margin and operationally intensive relative to other venture areas.
- Ecosystem Misalignment: Developer grants were often directed toward fixed integrations or dApp layers, making recurring infrastructure monetisation difficult in practice.
Following this assessment, the team made the decision to sunset PORTERS as a standalone infrastructure product. Rather than dissolve the entity, it was restructured and rebranded into DATA GATEWAYS LLC, a venture builder focused on applied experimentation across the decentralised stack.
From RPC to Venture Studio
Section titled “From RPC to Venture Studio”As of May 2025, the original team remains intact under DATA GATEWAYS LLC, now operating a portfolio of lightweight venture experiments, including:
- OnboardAI: AI-powered crypto onboarding agent
- POPCO: Lightweight coordination and RFP tooling for DAOs and ecosystems
The transition to a venture studio was driven by the same spirit of fast learning, modular architecture, and open-source-first development that underpinned PORTERS.
Add placeholder: diagram of venture pivot, timeline or logo evolution
Legacy
Section titled “Legacy”PORTERS left a meaningful technical and reputational footprint in the decentralised infrastructure space:
- Proved that usage-based RPC access with on-chain billing is possible
- Created modular deployment kits (Gateway Kit) now referenced in open-source communities
- Influenced how early Web3 ventures think about capital efficiency, subsidy design, and developer-facing UX for decentralized infrastructure
The lessons from PORTERS continue to inform our venture strategy. Our bet today is not on one product, but on staying close to what matters: ecosystem friction, user needs, and gaps in decentralised infrastructure access.