Hello ZNNAliens, the purpose of this post is to briefly tell you about some big things currently being worked on in the ecosystem. Being a decentralised community-run project is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we are a hive-mind of global contributors which acquires talent regardless of antiquated barriers such as country of origin, university degree, appearance, age etc. On the other hand, being leaderless our stuff is all over the place! This is just the bittersweet hallmark of a nascent ecosystem.
So until we mature, here are links to learn more about some of the exciting stuff that is being worked on or talked about. These links will be updated over time, and even when updated this is not a complete list of everything that is happening, just a selection of what potential investors may find the most interesting. Let’s start on 8 exciting things that are coming to Zenon!
1. You!
Firstly, if you are a new dev looking for work please check out the orientation link below:
https://forum2.zenon.org/t/welcome-new-devs/1540/3
2. Layer-2 which is EVM-compatible
The current philosophy is to keep the layer-1 minimal and efficient, and leverage layer-2s for the smart contracts. Aliencoder is working on a L2 which is EVM compatible. Its gas will be supplied by a wrapped version of ZNN and its purpose is to facilitate interoperability and adoption with the wider crypto ecosystem. It is considered to be an extension chain, slated to be finished by the end of this year! (end Q4 of 2023) Check out the following links relating to it:
https://forum2.zenon.org/t/extension-chains-smart-contracts-for-nom/1512
https://forum2.zenon.org/t/evm-compatible-l2-under-works-by-sumamu/1393
3. Layer-2 which is very fast/highly scalable
As said above, the current philosophy is to keep the layer-1 minimal and efficient, and leverage layer-2s for the smart contracts. Sumamu is working on a L2 which is very fast/highly scalable. It is a turing-complete zero-knowledge general computation scaling solution. The programming language is a new one called Cairo, and the smart contracts are called Starknet Contracts. There is research ongoing, but it may leverage unikernels (their simplicity could enable superior speed and security) and leverage Bitcoin as a data-availability layer.
https://forum2.zenon.org/t/side-chain-l2-scaling-solution/1438
4. Mobile Wallet with embedded node
There is a mobile wallet with an embedded node being worked on. A first in the crypto space?! The community is very pumped about this. See the below link which contains a lot of gems if you sift through it, such as the screenshots for the designs for the user interface, as well as more recently links for people wanting to test out the alpha release on android (IOS/iphone testing coming zoon!) Do NOT use real funds just yet, still testing!!
https://forum2.zenon.org/t/syrius-wallet-mobile-app/659/75
5. Multichain bridge tech+
The “NoM Multichain Tech” looks like just an ETH bridge, but actually the code base is rich, and potent and has plans to later develop such interoperability solutions with Bitcoin and with BNB later on. We are calling them portals, hope on board the fancy wording train! It also has some code embedded to facilitate a link with the layer-2s being worked on, and it also supports an affiliate marketing system. Jeez, can it also make mochas with whipped cream on top? See below, it’s become a mega thread but well-worth powering through it!
https://forum2.zenon.org/t/welcome-to-the-multiverse-bridging-the-zenon-ecosystem/932
6. P2P Marketplace w Atomic Swaps!
Hypercore Team are working on delivering peer-to-peer atomic swaps, leveraging HTLC/PTLC. There are also plans for a P2P marketplace. Using technology to eliminate trust is a core principle of the crypto movement. A CEX requires a level of trust and risk, so does a DEX but to a lesser extent. OTC trades requires trusting an escrow. The future is P2P and we are here to create trends, not follow them.
7. Network upgrades!
Almost all community devs are somewhat discussing and planning on working on network upgrades. To make the layer-1 very scalable we need to deliver dynamic plasma (the transaction throughput management mechanism of the NoM):
Later on the roadmap, people are also talking about consensus upgrades which will lead to the full realisation of the whitepapers vision (making sentinels an active player in the consensus). Since the NoM is DAG-based technology, there are plans to look at implementing Narwhal and Tusk for extreme scalability >100k tps. This will be when clark kent takes his glasses off and becomes superman so stay tuned savvy degens!
8. BItcoin interoperability and DeFi!
Finally there are some ideas for Bitcoin interoperability, but likely the network needs more upgrades first before they can be implemented. Here is a post linked to these ideas, some of which are experimental in nature such as the brc-20 tokens:
https://forum2.zenon.org/t/pitch-btc-znn-tech-and-no-bs/1422
