Gravity Roadmap Update — 2021 Q1/Q2
Gravity Protocol is an open-source initiative with a transparent approach to development. An open roadmap that designated several significant milestones of Gravity was published in July of 2020. Following the launch of the Gravity Mainnet Alpha with Waves/BSC as target chains, we find it necessary to publish an updated roadmap for 2021 Q1/Q2 that reflects our current plans of extending the protocol.
1. Integration with Avalanche Blockchain
Avalanche by Ava Labs is an open-source platform for launching highly decentralized applications, new financial primitives, and new interoperable blockchains. The integration process of Avalanche with Gravity will involve several stages. Initially, we are planning to release a wrapped version of $AVAX, the native token of Avalanche, on Waves. Later on, with more DEXes becoming available on Avalanche, we will provide Avalanche-based versions of $WAVES, $USDN, and $NSBT tokens.
2. Launching ERC-20 gateways in the Waves blockchain
We plan on using our research results and the existing codebase of Binance Smart Chain to launch full fledged mainnet ERC-20 SuSy gateways to Ethereum.
3. Gravity<->Polkadot integration
Polkadot is an open-source sharding multichain protocol that facilitates the cross-chain transfer of any data or asset types. Our primary aim of integration with Polkadot is to develop and deploy gateways between Polkadot and Ethereum into Waves/Ethereum for $DOT as wrapped tokens.
4. ERC-20 Autostaking NSBT (Neutrino Token)
One of the tangential proposals that could find application of Gravity gateways is a recently published Neutrino Improvement Proposal (NIP) that aims to deploy a new version of ERC20 NSBT with auto-staking functionality. The proposed process of rewards’ management is thus: an NSBT ERC20 gateway will be able to stake locked $NSBT and accrue rewards in $WAVES and $USDN tokens. Those rewards can be aggregated into $USDN and paid out via the Neutrino smart contract.
5. Delegation gateway that allows to sign transactions in Waves from an Ethereum account
One of the high priority tasks that is able to make the user experience of interacting with the Waves blockchain more familiar to the Ethereum users is allowing for using Metamask to sign transactions in Waves.
6. Integration of Fantom
Fantom is a smart contract platform providing decentralized finance (DeFi) services to developers using its own consensus algorithm. Initially, we aim to create wrapped versions of its in-house token $FTM and make the blockchain fully-compatible with Gravity afterwards.
7. Research into Optimistic Rollups integration
Optimistic Rollups are a layer-2 solution for Ethereum to improve scalability, represented by a parallel sidechain that supports smart contracts. Each rollup is an off-chain aggregation of transactions which reduces fees and congestion. Connecting Optimistic Rollups with Gravity would allow for a faster and less expensive Ethereum mainnet integration and an easier development cycle.
8. Diversification of Gravity Nodes
Gravity boasts an extensive network of more than 20 partners, most of which are committed to support the Gravity network through setting up and maintaining Gravity nodes.
9. Decentralized Treasury: accumulating fees from Gravity operations and distributing between participants
As stated in the white paper, the Gravity protocol is designed as an open source blockchain-agnostic protocol without its own utility token. The options available for the support of long-term financial sustainability, as well as for sponsoring the development and research by different teams and attracting interested sponsors, are constrained in such systems and require an innovative approach. To solve this task, we are proposing a model of taxation/fee for each transaction to register at Gravity services or payment for data provision from USER-SC. All funds collected under this model go to a decentralized cross-chain treasury fund, where they can be managed by a special DAO.
The activity of the DAO will be directed towards achieving long-term financial sustainability of the protocol development. The treasury fund will be replenished by any external project sponsors interested in developing and promoting the protocol.
10. Gravity hackathon
In collaboration with the VenLab team and Gravity protocol partners, the Waves Association will host an online hackathon to attract developers to the Gravity ecosystem.
The core functionality of hackathon tasks will be based on solving the following technical problems related to cross-chain token transfers using Gravity Protocol — decentralized gateways, liquid staking gateways, Nebulas & Data Extractors, Proof-Of-Reserves Systems, Interchain OTC. It will also include interaction with external data sources. Each task describes an extension of the logical parts of the Gravity Protocol.
The hackathon will take place in mid-April over several weeks, with exact timing and prize sizes to be determined and announced by the Waves Association in the future. Stay tuned for the Waves Association blog for the announcement.
11. Open calls for Q&A for transparency and status check of the roadmap completion
Starting this week, we plan to organize bi-weekly open calls accessible to the community. The aim of these open Q&A is to assess current progress and discuss potential next steps of development. Further information about how to join these calls will be made available on Gravity’s social media.
For more information, you can read the Gravity Whitepaper, visit the Gravity website, join the community on Twitter or Telegram or contact press@gravity.tech
