Waves roadmap latest update: From Crunching Smarter contracts to stabilizing atomic swaps
Since the project’s inception in 2016, the Waves team has been steadily and strategically implementing features on their network that shaped the platform into a well-rounded crypto-environment. Thanks to the team’s strict adherence to their project plan, the platform has now transformed into a fully functioning ecosystem. With features like a Decentralized exchange (DEX) with an integrated payment gateway, Waves-NG protocol that facilitates handling highest number of transactions per second, intuitive interfaces for both desktop and mobile devices and simple steps to create, register and trade tokens the platform has seen an exponential increase in the user base. While the development team has rolled out the promised features for 2016 and 2017, let’s look into what’s in store for the users in 2018:
Q1’18 – All eyes on smart contracts:
The most significant addition to the network out of the list of planned features for 2018 would be the ‘Smart Contracts.’ With the network’s ability to now handle a high number of transactions per second, the smart contracts would facilitate for easy and efficient operability. As per the latest update from the Waves team on Jan 23rd, 2018, the team is working on the non-turing smart contracts. Observing the parity wallet debacle, the team has opted to minimize the risk and cover for exposure in the first version of the Smart contracts launch. Hence Waves’ smart contracts will be a more direct generalization of bitcoin scripting that will be able to handle most of the same use cases without the security implications.
The first quarter is going to be furthermore hectic since the team is planning to introduce hardware wallets and update the mobile applications. While these might be typical rollout exercises, the real test would be developing the groundwork for decentralized voting and blockchain messaging systems. Most of the current voting systems can be gamed relatively easy. Hence Waves team is trying to bank on the immutability of blockchain to facilitate voting in a decentralized fashion. This will allow projects to communicate with their stakeholders about business strategies and reach a consensus efficiently. The team is also working on blockchain messaging system that enables users to interact in an encrypted channel and at the same time enjoy the privileges of traditional messenger apps.
Q2’18- Atomic Swaps on DEX?
Post a massive first quarter; the Waves team would be hustling with a significant task of implementing atomic swaps and thereby enabling interoperability of blockchains on a large scale. An atomic swap is a feature that allows for the exchange of one cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency without the need for a trusted third party. An atomic swap system uses a hash time-locked contract so that a party must deliver the currency to be swapped within a specified time, or else the transaction will be cancelled. This preserves atomicity in that either the swap will take place, or no currency will be swapped.
Post the implementation of atomic swap, the first step will be to make it possible to trade ERC20 tokens on the Waves DEX – meaning Ether or any Ethereum tokens can be traded against WAVES or any Waves token. Bitcoin and other coins will progressively be integrated. Parallel the team will be working out to roll out the front end of the Voting system as a fully developed feature.
Q3’18 – Off-Chain Messaging with front end:
Building on the groundwork of Q1’18, the team would work towards completing the messaging feature end to end. While the focus of Q1’18 was on-chain messaging, the work would be heavily centered around an off-chain encrypted messaging system. It will use a regular public/private key system, but information will not be stored on the blockchain, as it is with some other systems (unless this is explicitly required). This approach is more secure and avoids unnecessary bloat.
Q4’18 – Turing Complete Smart contracts
As planned, the Non-Turing complete smart contracts are safer and cover most of the use cases. Hence they are being implemented first in 2018. Once all the risks have been included, the Turing complete smart contracts will be implemented in the last quarter of 2018 to cover all the possible use cases. In addition to the smart contracts, the platform will touch upon the Lite client version to tune up the services at the end of the year.
All in all, it is going to be an eventful year ahead for the Waves team, and they are already making steady progress on the roadmap. With a good number of ICOS coming up on the platform, the features would make the platform more attractive and accessible for future projects.