Market Management and Major Particl Desktop Upgrade 🚀

As most of you already know by now, the Particl team is working on a pretty major update to Particl Desktop and its marketplace — Market Management. It is a new major feature that allows you and anyone else to create an unlimited number of markets or storefronts on the Particl network and manage an unlimited number of identities across any of these markets through user profiles. It essentially transforms Particl from a marketplace to a network of infinite marketplaces and seller shops.

Market Management is the biggest marketplace update ever since it launched on mainnet in August 2019 and will be one of the biggest building blocks of the entire Particl eCommerce protocol. The changes and meaning it brings to Particl will shape the marketplace into a unique and powerful marketplace protocol and open up endless possibilities.

The release of Market Management on mainnet will be a huge milestone in Particl’s lifecycle, but it will also mark the beginning of a new and exciting “development era” focused on making adoption of the platform as easy as possible. That much will be reflected in Particl’s upcoming roadmap update, which more details can be found in the last section of this Development Update.

Development Update

This major Particl Desktop update will also introduce a few other improvements which will be explained in this Development Update. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it!

Market Management

The team is still busy implementing Market Management. Most of the required work has already been completed on the marketplace codebase side of things, and the team is now putting the final touches on the flagging and blacklisting functions for user markets and storefronts. Just like for listings, this governance mechanism is required for the community to be able to protect itself from undesirable content and vote it out. And it will behave just like when flagging a listing too! When a certain market or storefront reaches a certain negative voting threshold, it will get delisted off of the client.

Following this, the new code will need to go through various integration tests to ensure it is secure and without bugs, after which the first testnet build will be released for community testing.

Identities and User Profiles

Market Management also introduces a brand new concept — Identity Management. In fact, each market will be able to be created using any identity and sellers will be able to manage an unlimited number of them spread across an unlimited number of markets through the user of user profiles.

This new marketplace function is already completed in the codebase and is now awaiting the completion of the remaining Market Management components before the integration process can be finalized and properly tested.

SMSG Network

Due to the new changes brought forth by Market Management, the SMSG network will also need a few tweaks to ensure that messages are carried properly between different markets, storefronts, as well as the “open market”.

The required modifications are currently being worked in at this moment.

Search Function Improvements

Another set of improvements coming up has to do with the search function of the marketplace. This is yet again due to the scope of the changes caused by Market Management, as the search function will now need to be able to properly search for items across different markets/storefronts. A few minor improvements to the search function will also be added to the next Particl Desktop update, which will be followed by more significant improvements and additions (i.e. sort by, filters, etc) in future updates.

This improvement is still being worked on at the moment and should be completed soon as well.

GUI and UI/UX Changes

As can be expected, Market Management is going to introduce a lot of changes to Particl Desktop’s user interface and experience. That’s because the Market Management feature fundamentally changes the very nature of Particl’s marketplace from a single marketplace to an entire network of marketplaces and seller shops.

What that means is that, once Market Management goes live, Particl Desktop might look and feel a bit different than what you’re used to. The team is still busy preparing the GUI for the full Market Management and user profile integrations.

Visible and Accessible When First Starting the Application

One of the obvious changes that eventually needed to be done on Particl Desktop is the ability to easily start buying and selling on the marketplace without having to go through the hassle of manually creating a second wallet named Market. To that effect, the team is currently integrating that function into Particl Desktop and it will be bundled in with the upcoming Market Management update.

How the new process will look like will work is as follow:

  • Users who already have a Market wallet activated will see their wallet be automatically converted to fit the new marketplace structure. There is no additional step to convert your Market wallet into the new marketplace structure other than updating Particl Desktop.
  • Users who install Particl Desktop for the first time and looking to use the marketplace will be presented with a new setup process that is clear and visible and will allow the user to create both the default wallet and a Market wallet at the same time.

This new way of accessing the marketplace will make it much easier for everyone to get started with Particl’s marketplace.

General Performance Improvements

With all of the above being said, let’s not forget that the next Particl Desktop update will also introduce several performance improvements. That’s because this update touches a majority of the marketplace codebase and refactors it with more efficient and “mature” processes.

The sum of all the minor improvements applied here and there will be translated in Particl Desktop being a little lighter and faster than it currently is. The marketplace should also be even smoother to use.

Performance improvements to the marketplace and the Particl Desktop client are typical whenever a new version of Particl Desktop is released, but this particular update should see a relatively-more-significant-than-usual performance boost.

ETA?

It is difficult to give a proper ETA for the delivery of Market Management as integration tests are pretty much unpredictable and can take a shorter or longer time to complete depending on the results. The very good news, though, is that most of the code is now completed on the codebase level and that we are just about to embark into the integration/testing phase.

Upcoming 2020 Roadmap Update

The Particl team is also working on its new 2020 Development Roadmap which will be heavily focused on the adoption of the marketplace. As Market Management is released, it will mark the end of a significant development sprint and the beginning of a new one. The release of the new roadmap will be the cornerstone of this new phase of development.

An ETA until its release cannot be stated just yet, but it really won’t be long anymore. The team is currently evaluating many roadmap items and setting up the priorities as well as the roadmap structure before publishing it to the public. One thing is certain, it’s that the new roadmap will be pretty exciting as the marketplace becomes more and more mature and easy to use. This is where it gets very interesting as “new user retention” becomes much better!

You can expect a few articles to be posted on Particl.news within a few days, which will eventually lead to the 2020 roadmap unveiling! As always, stay tuned for more updates! 😉