Ocean Roadmap || Setting sail to 2021
Welcome back sailors! As we are approaching our next milestone, Tethys, we are sharing our map for the journey ahead, looking through the periscope up to 2021. At Ocean Protocol, we value transparency towards our community, and we feel that sharing our goals — and the path to reach them — is important.
In this spirit, we will go over what last year’s plan was, how we have fared so far, and what we are planning for the next couple of years. Hang on tight!
Last July, we produced a blogpost describing the voyage ahead towards our first official release, V1 Beta. This included two intermediary milestones, Plankton in August and Trilobite in late November. How did we do?
First steps
2018 was a full year for us at Ocean Protocol: Pre-Launch in March, ramping up the team, setting the goals, and two tech releases… A lot of work was done, challenges were overcome, and sleep was lost. But we made it!
In late August, we released Plankton, our very first Testnet. It included some basic components and features, like publishing and consuming an asset. With this, the foundations were laid.
In the autumn, we were hard at work improving the hull of the ship. We reframed our architecture and rolled out our second Testnet Trilobite in late November. With this, we had improved upon every aspect of Plankton: more solid flows for publishing, searching, and consuming an asset; the introduction of the Service Execution Agreements; Access Control, using Parity’s Secret Store; integration with fitchain; the client libraries Squid (in JavaScript and Python); and more. This was a huge effort by the team, but we pushed through to new frontiers and were motivated to deliver some exciting features to the community. In addition, we also launched our Data Science layer in December, Manta Ray. This was a compelling development, unlocking shiny new possibilities to some of Ocean’s most core users — Data Scientists.
So far, so good — We have stayed completely on track based on our last roadmap. We have delivered. And the team is rapidly closing in on the last port in our initial three stop journey: the Tethys release.
Land ahoy!
Ocean Protocol V1 is Tethys. V1 has three sub-releases: Alpha, Beta, and Production. We’ve been running V1 Alpha since January with our internal “Nile” testnet. After a long, exploratory sail, dry land is finally in sight.
In the spring, we’ll reach V1 Beta. With the Beta release, we will offer modular Service Execution Agreements and Access Control; a Commons Data Marketplace; an improved Manta Ray Data Science layer; Metadata stores; and easier integrations for our partners. This is another massive effort by the team that will deliver an exciting new ecosystem for the community to explore.
We are launching the Ocean V1 Beta network in the spring as well. Our AI / data science users demand performance, so Ocean will be on a dedicated Proof-of-Authority (POA) network. Details are here. There is a lot of work being done on the legal and governance side. Shortly after, 690M (49%) Ocean Tokens will be placed on a stable network: the Ethereum mainnet (the remaining 51% tokens for incentives will come later).
Once Ocean V1 Beta becomes stable, Ocean V1 Production software and network will be shipped. Ocean Tokens will be moved to this network.
We are getting ready to pull into our first major port of call. But it’s only the beginning. It is now the time to prepare to sail more ambitious waters, and draw maps that will take us through uncharted waters.
Reaching new shores
Last year’s roadmap was a comprehensive plan for the 9 months ahead. This time, we want to provide a further look ahead, leading up all the way to early 2021. This mapping gives us a strong framework so that we don’t need to navigate by the stars. The coming two years have been divided into 4 different next-generation releases to take us to new prosperous lands in January 2021.
V1 beta was March 2019. V1 production (Tethys) follows. Here’s what’s slated after that.
V2–2019 (or 2020)
- After the Commons Marketplace in Tethys, we will have case-specific Marketplaces with Ocean’s collaborators.
- Web 2.0 integration (for compute and storage services): we will finalize access and integration to AWS, Azure, etc.
- Improved Service Execution Agreements: staking conditions; slashing conditions; bounty rewards; competition rewards. These will provide a lot of value towards incentives.
V3–2020
- Verification and Validation of conditions and service provided via cryptographic proofs. Enables incentives via network rewards.
- Incentives / network rewards for different actors (including verifiers). Ocean Protocol will be able to reward with tokens against work done.
- Web 3.0 integration (for example: with other decentralized projects). This is the next logical step after Web 2.0 integration. At this point we might update the roadmap to include multi-chain technology integrations.
V4–TBD
- Bounties on-chain (DASH style model). Implements a means for the system to not only self-sustain but actually improve over the decades, without guidance by a centralized actor.
- Clan governance (enable marketplace specific governance, group governance, etc.) for more modular governance models.
V5 — TBD
- Fully permission-less Ocean Protocol. Limits opportunity for gate-keeping by node operators, while still maintaining POA performance levels.
- Balanced governance: transparent process for updating protocol that balances stakeholder needs (keepers, service providers, curators, validators).
Conclusion
These goals will require dedication and hard work from the whole team, as well as from the community. If you want to get involved, please feel free explore our code on GitHub. We are always open to your feedback.
Although these objectives may seem ambitious, rest assured that the wind is in our sails, the tide is high, and we have kept this lightning pace since early days in October 2017. We hope you will join us on this epic voyage.
Authored by John Enevoldsen and the Ocean Team.
Edit Mar 5, 2019: updated with refinements on the V1 releases: Alpha, Beta, Production.
