With Particl V3 now live on mainnet, it’s time to jump right into a new phase for the Particl project. As such, we are happy to release the new updated development roadmap and major milestones ahead of us.
In this post, we’ll expand on Particl’s vision for the future and break down every roadmap item. We also have a few words on marketing, PR, adoption, and the new website so make sure to read this blog post in full!
Table of Contents
- Particl V3
- Roadmap objectives
- Discover the new roadmap
- BasicSwap Open Beta
- Web framework
- What about marketing?
Particl V3 – The Foundation of Particl's entire ecosystem
The release of Particl V3 on mainnet represents a major milestone for the project. Indeed, Particl V3 is the new, more modern foundation on top of which the future of the Particl ecosystem will be built. Because the scope of this essential update was so massive, it took a long time to get ready but was a necessary step in the evolution of the project.
Indeed, Particl V3’s modular approach makes it easier and more efficient to use apps like Particl Marketplace. Still, many of its improvements are back-end functionalities and necessary improvements to the quality of the code. Simply put, all the changes introduced with Particl V3 make possible the majority of the roadmap items presented today.
Roadmap Objectives
The roadmap has been designed with three simple but powerful objectives in mind.
Improve Particl’s accessibility and make it easier to use for a wider range of audiences.
Particl Desktop and the apps it hosts is still a relatively complex application that can be rough around the edges and requires some learning to use. Of course, this is to be expected during the pioneering phase of any groundbreaking technology, but it makes it harder to capture casual users. This is why making Particl as accessible and easy to use as possible is vital to Particl’s success.
Improve the marketplace with features that can directly lead to more adoption.
Because Particl Marketplace is still in beta, a few essential features, functionalities, and options are still missing to this day. Without these, a lot of sellers and buyers may find the marketplace too limited to use it. Therefore, the Particl team is opting to adopt a strategical mindset and prioritize the development of the features and functionalities that are the most likely to generate adoption.
Improve Particl’s scalability and stability in prevision for a wider level of adoption.
In a world that increasingly needs solutions like Particl, the rate of adoption of the platform can rocket up exponentially. For this reason, it needs to be ready to support large numbers of users, transactions, and messages with no downtime, perceivable lag, or other similar problems. To ensure that this is the case, improving the platform’s scalability and stability has been an important factor in the conception of this roadmap.
Discover the New Roadmap
Due to the large size of the roadmap, it has been separated in different categories to make it more digestible. This roadmap is a living, non-linear document. The team is expected to jump on and off and work on multiple tasks at a time depending on various factors.
Tags
On the roadmap just below, you may see items that contain tags. Each tag represents a different status.
- Completed: The roadmap item has either been completed or a first significant version of it has been deployed.
- In progress: The roadmap item is currently being worked on, or has already started being worked on.
- Research: The roadmap item either requires more research or is currently under research.
- Ongoing: The roadmap item is a recurring task over time.
- Later: The roadmap item is scheduled for later time than most other roadmap items in the list.
- [NO TAG]: The roadmap item is not currently being worked on at the moment, but could be picked up after other roadmap items are delivered.
Major Milestones
What?
A cross-chain, private, and decentralized exchange (DEX) powered by atomic swaps and SMSG.
Why?
BasicSwap is Particl's native decentralized exchange powered by atomic swaps and SMSG. It lets you swap a vast number of coins privately without anyone in between and without paying trading fees. BasicSwap is compatible with multiple coins like PART, BTC, XMR, LTC, and more.
What?
A new version of SMSG that is significantly more scalable.
Why?
As Particl's adoption increases and more Particl apps use SMSG as its backbone, SMSG 2.0 ensures that the network can scale appropriately. This massive update will make it possible to support all current and upcoming Particl apps without any scaling issue.
What?
A user-friendly interface for Particl's Lightning Network.
Why?
Particl's Lightning Network is already live on mainnet, but there's currently no easy way to use it. Particl Electrum provides a user-friendly interface for everyone to enjoy all the benefits of the Lightning Network; near-infinite transaction scalability, near-zero fees, near-instant settlements, and more.
What?
A web framework to bring the Particl ecosystem to the web.
Why?
For Particl to gain maximum adoption, it needs to be accessible and operable through the web. Particl's planned web framework will allow apps like the marketplace, for example, to be available from web pages. The web framework is expected to be deployed incrementally. For example, a web-based listing browser may be deployed initially, on which new features and functionalities (i.e., search engine friendly content) will be added over time.
What?
A decentralized, private, and encrypted messaging/chat app.
Why?
The SMSG network is, at its core, a distributed messaging network. With a proper interface, it can be used as a messaging application that's fast, secure, unstoppable, uncensorable, and private. This "chat" functionality may come in different packages over time (i.e., Particl Desktop app, integration into the marketplace, mobile app, etc.).
"Major milestones" are the most important deliverables of the new roadmap. They are major releases that introduce key functionalities to the Particl ecosystem and craft the path forward. They will massively contribute to improving Particl and its adoption by making it more stable, resilient, private, and scalable.
These milestones are not necessarily intended to be worked on one right after the other. They usually require other roadmap items to be completed before they can be started, meaning the development focus is spread across all roadmap categories and not just this one.
Other Categories
Roadmap items related to the marketplace, desktop client, SMSG network, or the blockchain are grouped into their own categories. They are important features, additions, and improvements to the components and products of the Particl ecosystem that already exist.
Although these roadmap items are not included in the "major milestones" category, they are just as important and provide direct value to the ecosystem and improves its adoption potential by making it more accessible, usable, and feature-complete.
Blockchain and Coin
What?
An improved zap function that gives stakers more flexibility and privacy.
Why?
The new zap function makes it more efficient and confidential to zap funds when activating cold staking.
What?
A Particl version of the Electrum light wallet, with Lightning Network GUI included.
Why?
Electrum is an easy-to-use and popular light wallet that introduces various features and capabilities. One of them is a GUI for using Particl's Lightning Network. Electrum will not only make it easy to use the Lightning Network, but it's also expected to serve as the backbone for future components of the Particl ecosystem.
What?
A new protocol that brings new, more efficient, flexible, and private ways to transact PART.
Why?
The Taproot update includes many new features and capabilities, notably in the area of privacy. This update is particularly interesting considering the complex transactions generated by Particl's apps like the marketplace and the upcoming BasicSwap DEX. Taproot is expected to improve their privacy even more and reduce fees.
What?
A better support for Trezor hardware devices.
Why?
Trezor is a hardware device that lets users safely store coins offline. Having new hardware storage solution for Particl provides users with yet another safe way to store coins the way they prefer.
What?
The deployment of new blockchain explorers.
Why?
Many different blockchain explorers provide additional data that Particl's current primary blockchain explorer (Insight) doesn't. For this reason, having more blockchain explorers opens up the door to new opportunities, such as enabling Particl's upcoming web framework.
What?
A wide range of planned improvements to make Particl more scalable, stable, and fast.
Why?
As Particl's adoption grows, the ecosystem has to support the increased traffic. It also needs to be able to process a large number of transactions and SMSG messages. Various improvements are planned as part of the regular Particl Core updates to ensure that this is the case.
What?
A unified and more advanced multi-signature format.
Why?
PSBT is a more modern multi-signature protocol that improves on current multi-signature solutions. It makes it easier to use for wallets and nodes, and makes it compatible across more devices. PSBT also enables better CoinJoin-like functionality.
What?
An improvement to how mnemonics work in deterministic wallets.
Why?
SSS is a new, improved format for deterministic wallet mnemonics that "splits a master secret into unique parts which can be distributed among participants. A specified minimum number of parts is required to be supplied in order to reconstruct the original secret. Knowledge of fewer than the required number of parts does not leak information about the master secret."
Marketplace
What?
More features to the current inventory import tool. Includes importing images, categories, product codes, and more right from a CSV file.
Why?
Makes it easier and less time-consuming for large-scale vendors to open shop on Particl Marketplace. Currently, many operations still require a manual, one-by-one operation which is a tedious process for vendors with hundreds of listings.
What?
Additional shipping and delivery options to satisfy more needs (per country shipping costs, digital item deliveries, etc.).
Why?
Adding more shipping options helps sellers charge a more accurate shipping cost depending on the buyer's location and shipping preference. This roadmap item also includes new delivery methods for digital items, such as buyers providing a crypto address (i.e., NFTs) or a user code/username, for example.
What?
A wide range of escrow improvements to satisfy more use-cases.
Why?
At this time, escrow is mandatory on all transactions and requires a 100% security deposit rate. However, its current form may not be ideal for all types of transactions, sellers, and buyers. For this reason, a wide range of escrow improvements and options are planned to be deployed. This includes making escrow optional and introducing new features like an auto-destroy timer, an auto-complete timer, an adjustable security deposit requirement, partial refunds, and automation to reduce the number of steps required in the buy flow. All these escrow features are optional, leaving users with multiple options to satisfy their needs.
What?
An inventory management tool that lets sellers indicate the quantity in stock for each of their listings. It also lets them set up variants for items with multiple purchasing options (i.e., color, size, etc.).
Why?
This tool significantly improves the marketplace by introducing a key e-commerce feature to specify the number of available quantities. In addition, instead of creating multiple listings of the same item, sellers with products containing variants (i.e., storage size for USB keys) will be able to let buyers choose their purchasing preferences from a single listing.
What?
Added support for new types of orders, such as bidding auctions.
Why?
Allows the marketplace to provide a different experience for different types of users, products, and niches. For example, the art industry heavily uses bidding auctions and may be more inclined to use the marketplace if this feature is enabled.
What?
The ability to dynamically adjust and display listing prices based on the value of other currencies (i.e., USD).
Why?
Due to PART's price fluctuation, many users may prefer pricing and viewing listings based on different currencies (i.e., USD, EUR, BTC). This roadmap item depends on price oracles, which is a future functionality provided by Particl Desktop plugins (SMSG bots).
What?
A reputation system, best used in combination with Particl's escrow.
Why?
Before transacting, both the seller and the buyer want to ensure that the other party is trustworthy. A reputation system is a tool that helps with making that assessment. It provides additional information about the other user and, when combined with Particl's unique escrow system, offers a strong level of confidence and protection when trading with strangers.
What?
The ability to talk with the other participant during a marketplace transaction.
Why?
There are a lot of situations where both participants of a marketplace transaction may want to communicate together. Whether that's for asking a question before buying, providing an update, or dealing with a shipping issue, a built-in messaging system massively improves the user experience and helps resolve order-related issues.
What?
The ability for a market owner to set special permissions for other users.
Why?
A market owner may want to make their market or storefront invite-only, or they may wish to elect moderators. This feature makes community markets and storefronts more versatile, leading to more potential use-cases.
What?
Improvements to the marketplace's moderation system.
Why?
As no central authority has the power to control the marketplace and its content, the community is the one in charge of moderation. The current system is a basic process that lets anyone flag undesirable content. Several improvements are being considered, notably in relation to cold staking pools and AI systems. Improving the moderation system and its capabilities will make it more effective and lead to more people using it.
What?
The ability for Particl Marketplace to connect with third-party services.
Why?
While the marketplace is entirely decentralized, users can manually add third-party services through app extensions and plugins. Webhook integrations are such services that can be manually added. They allow the marketplace to connect to external platforms that provide services like inventory management, accounting, external notifications, etc. Any platform or person can deploy their own integration; the possibilities are endless.
What?
The ability to host large-size content like images on different data network systems (DSN).
Why?
Images make up for the majority of the data contained in SMSG messages. Hosting large-size content on external networks clears a lot of space on the SMSG network, allowing it to scale better and be more efficient. Additionally, other DSNs may provide features and functionalities not natively supported by SMSG, opening up the doors to more opportunities.
What?
A way to ensure the stability of the value of payments made on the marketplace.
Why?
PART's price volatility is not ideal for many e-commerce activities and users, especially those focused on tight margin requirements. Enabling a way to improve the stability of marketplace payments against other currencies (i.e., USD) is a major improvement that will tremendously help with usability and predictability. This is a major milestone towards large-scale adoption, but it is not a near-future roadmap item. In the meantime, "fiat" payment gateways may be integrated on Particl Desktop using plugins.
What?
A wide range of minor marketplace features and general improvements.
Why?
A wide range of more minor features and general improvements is planned as part of Particl Desktop's regular release schedule. These additions usually take less time to get ready and can come up due to user feedback or problems encountered. A few examples of such features include unique listing identifiers, markdown formatting for listing descriptions, additional listing browser view options, optional text fields for compliance, and many more to be added over time. The team wants to keep a flexible approach to development and expects a few features and improvements to require to be added suddenly.
Desktop
What?
A system that allows apps and developers to interact with the SMSG network more effectively.
Why?
A streamlined process for interacting with the SMSG network is required for apps and developers to easily and safely interact with the SMSG network. The SMSG manager also provides various failsafe mechanisms and massively increases SMSG's compatibility with future apps other than the marketplace. It's an important step towards making Particl more developer-friendly.
What?
Better separation of Particl Core and Particl Desktop.
Why?
Making Particl Desktop even more independent of Particl Core makes the client more efficient. This improves the quality of the code making other features and functionalities easier to maintain and deploy.
What?
Support for app extensions and plugins to provide third-party functionalities to the desktop client.
Why?
Particl is an entirely decentralized network and functions without any third-party intervention. However, intermediaries may provide helpful services and features that may benefit users (i.e., data oracles, crypto swap services, etc.). The app extension and plugin system lets anyone broadcast and add third-party services on Particl Desktop.
What?
A system that lets users modify configuration settings, such as easily enabling Tor routing.
Why?
Manually editing Particl Core configuration files can provide a lot of extra functionalities to users, but it can also break things in unexpected ways. A config management system lets the user tweak these low-level settings without any potential issue. This can be useful, for example, to easily connect to the Tor network.
What?
The ability to delete the encryption of a wallet or change its password.
Why?
There are many situations where a user may want to delete the encryption of a wallet or change its password. This is what this roadmap item introduces.
What?
Move staking and cold staking to a separate section or app.
Why?
Making a separate section or app for staking (and cold staking) allows for a better way to provide more options and features. This makes staking and cold staking more intuitive and powerful.
What?
The addition of various push notifications to the user's operating system.
Why?
Receiving notifications through your operating system lets you stay connected and up-to-date with what's going on with your Particl-related activities. Notifications can be pushed for many different events such as a marketplace order update, an inbound PART transaction, a completed escrow, etc.
Want to Suggest a New Feature or Improvement?
Your feedback and ideas are incredibly valuable! If you have any feature, improvement, or functionality suggestion, we highly encourage you to let us know about it.
Simply head over to the appropriate Issue page (i.e., Particl Desktop or Particl Core), and create a new issue with the "Feature Request" option. This way, you are sure that a Particl developer will see your suggestion.
Keep Track of Things
To keep track of the progress made on these roadmap items, we publish, every week on Friday, a development progress report on Particl News. This is the best way to stay up-to-date with all the developments and updates.
This roadmap will also have its own separate page on the new Particl.io website. It will be regularly updated as new items are added, completed or moved to the "in progress" phase.
BasicSwap Open Beta
BasicSwap is scheduled to be the next major release for Particl. It's a cross-chain and private decentralized exchange powered by atomic swaps and the SMSG network. It lets you swap different coins, including PART, BTC, XMR, LTC, and others without any intermediary. While the DEX is currently in its closed beta phase, it already works over mainnet, with several successful swaps having taken place during the last few weeks.
Particl's core developer Tecnovert is working, at this moment, on some required tweaks to the SMSG network and is putting the final touches to the DEX before it can be considered ready for the deployment of its open beta phase.
As we are rapidly nearing the launch of BasicSwap's open beta, you can expect much more information about it to be released shortly on Particl News. So buckle up because Particl is just about to become invincible!
Web Framework
Making Particl Marketplace and other apps, like BasicSwap, available from the web with full (or nearly full) functionality is a critical milestone in making Particl more accessible, user-friendly, and likely to get massive levels of adoption. This is what the "web framework" does.
However, accessibility is one thing, usability is another. Because many other vital features need to be integrated into the marketplace to make it more functional, the web framework is scheduled for later while other essential roadmap items (additional marketplace features and functionalities) get more immediate focus.
Additionally, the web framework depends on other roadmap items, such as alternative block explorers, for example. Due to the many moving pieces required to fall in place for the web framework to be deployed, it is currently marked as "Later" and "Research". In other words, it's contextually not an immediate priority but is one of the most critical points of the current roadmap.
Just like most major items on this roadmap, we will publish more information about it when its time comes.
What About Marketing?
Now that the new foundation for the Particl ecosystem, Particl V3, is live on mainnet, the team can now gradually ramp up marketing, brand awareness campaigns, and outreach efforts. This process is already ongoing, with a few initiatives already being live and with many more in line.
On that topic, we will publish, very shortly, a detailed blog post about Particl's vision moving forward, especially in regards to marketing and adoption. This will be an important publication that will shine a light on Particl's vision and mission, as well as on how the team intends to make the platform successful.
However, it's essential to consider that Particl Desktop and the marketplace are still in beta, meaning that they may be a bit rough around the edges and complicated to use for some. For this reason, Particl's marketing strategy is intended to gradually ramp up as the products themselves evolve and target the audiences that are the most likely to adopt Particl in its current form, with the features available at the time.
The New Website is Key
The new website is critical in making any marketing effort successful. It is where newcomers, those introduced to Particl through marketing campaigns, are the most likely to land and get their first impression. A website is a project's most crucial marketing statement.
To that effect, the new website is a massive improvement over the current one, improving on every single aspect. It makes Particl's vision and values much clearer and better tells the project's story. It also puts the spotlight on Particl's various applications, ensuring everybody knows precisely what the project has to offer to them.
We are very confident that the new website will dramatically improve the conversion of curious people into engaged users. It will play a massive part in making future marketing, PR, and outreach campaigns more successful.
Note: Initially scheduled to launch this week, we have to postpone the new website release to next week. One of our team members involved with its development has faced health issues that rendered him unavailable for several days this week and, for this reason, couldn't complete the final parts in time. This team member is now recovering fine.
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Thanks to all of you for your trust and passion for Particl's vision of a decentralized, safe, and private world economy without middlemen. The entire Particl team is very excited to jump right into the next phase of the Particl project and take it to yet another level.
With Particl V3 released, the foundation is set to expand the ecosystem and bring it into more people's hands than ever. But rest assured, Particl is a long game; it's just getting started. From here on out, there's no stopping the Particl train anymore!
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