Vana: staking dApp, explorer, subgraph, and bridge UI
Vana is a Layer 1 built to turn user data into an asset class for AI. Its data-liquidity-pool model lets contributors pool datasets and lets $VANA holders back those pools as guarantors, which works only if the chain infrastructure around it exists: a way to stake and delegate, indexed data to drive dashboards, an explorer for verifying transactions, and a bridge onto the network.
Protofire built several of those pieces. We developed the $VANA staking dApp and its subgraph, covering pool delegation, reward distribution, and a performance leaderboard. We built and operate Vana's block explorer on Blockscout. And we built a Hyperlane bridge interface for moving assets into Vana. The work is public across Protofire's GitHub org.
“A leaderboard ranks pools by their key performance metrics so a staker can decide where to delegate rather than guessing.”
The Vana model and what it requires
Vana is a Layer 1 for user-owned data. Instead of data living inside the platforms that collect it, people contribute datasets into data liquidity pools, a DataDAO-style structure where a pool's data becomes something the network can price and reward. The $VANA token sits at the center: holders stake it as guarantors behind specific pools, which signals confidence and directs rewards.
Vana reports pre-mainnet testnet activity of roughly 1.3 million users, about 1.7 million transactions a day, and more than 6.5 million data points contributed (source: Vana).
That model reduces to a set of concrete jobs a user has to be able to do. They need to stake $VANA and delegate it to one or more pools under a minimum amount and lock period, and to see which pools are performing before they commit. They need rewards to accrue and to be claimable.
They need an explorer to confirm a transaction actually landed. And they need a way to bring assets onto Vana in the first place. Each piece has to match how the pools actually work and be reliable enough that a new user's first interaction is not a dead end.
How Protofire built the staking, indexing, explorer, and bridge pieces
Protofire delivered the staking dApp end to end. It handles staking with a configurable minimum amount and staking period, delegation to one or more pools through a dashboard, and reward distribution with estimated rewards and a manual claim function. A leaderboard ranks pools by their key performance metrics so a staker can decide where to delegate rather than guessing.
Behind the interface, we built a subgraph that indexes the on-chain staking and pool data the dashboard and leaderboard read from, so the numbers a user sees reflect chain state rather than a separate off-chain database.
Alongside the dApp, Protofire built and operates Vana's block explorer on Blockscout, the open-source explorer. We deployed and adapted it for Vana and run it in production, the layer that lets anyone verify a Vana transaction, contract, or address. Separately, we built a Hyperlane bridge interface for Vana, an original Protofire front end over Hyperlane's interoperability stack that gives users a path to move assets onto the chain.
Proof
The engineering is public. protofire/vana-blockscout is the Vana explorer Protofire operates, deployed and customized on top of Blockscout. protofire/hyperlane-vana-bridge-ui is Protofire's original bridge interface built over Hyperlane. The staking dApp and its subgraph were delivered for the same ecosystem.