OverProtocol's Roadmap Unveiled
OverProtocol - Tangible Layer 1 Infrastructure Powered by Personal Nodes
OverProtocol introduces a new Layer 1 infrastructure featuring lightweight nodes that run on personal computers. This setup aims to create the world’s most decentralized and accessible network. It includes an intuitive node client and wallet application to provide a web3-agnostic user experience and expand the community.
Today, I would like to disclose our roadmap to inform our vision and direction. The roadmap is derived from OverProtocol’s two key objectives: accessibility and usability.
Accessibility
Accessibility means anyone can easily participate in the core of the protocol, such as downloading and verifying data or becoming a validator to participate in the consensus. It has been impossible due to the high specification requirements of a machine and knowledge in computer science, like Linux and terminal. Therefore, users in the blockchain remain users, not contributors, which alienates them from the financial opportunities derived from the protocol.
OverProtocol is focusing on enhancing accessibility to a level where ordinary people can run a node, contribute to the protocol, and get fair rewards, which is sustainable for the protocol and the participants. This is achieved by Ethanos, the node optimization technology featuring intuitive node clients focusing on user experience. If you are interested, read the academic paper (https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3447786.3456231), but I will not explain the principle here because it would undermine the accessibility of this writing. To achieve an easy and intuitive user interface, we made a GUI-based node client that does not require expertise in computer science, and we provide an intuitive mobile application for higher accessibility.
Usability
Usability means that users gain utilities by using the blockchain. I believe the utility of the blockchain derives from the market, especially new markets in areas where the market is too primitive, making exchanges very inefficient. For example, flea markets are inefficient since they require physical space, operate seasonally, and necessitate finding and matching buyers and sellers one-to-one. In contrast, the crypto market is very efficient as it does not require physical space, operates 24/7, and does not need to find and match buyers and sellers.
The reason why accessibility is important for usability is that we cannot build new markets without accessibility. The contexts between crypto and primitive markets have too much of a gap, so we have to lower the entry barriers as much as we can to onboard new users to build a new market. Otherwise, we will alienate the newcomers, fail to build a new market, and fail to expand the community and usability.
Q3-Q4 2024
Before the mainnet, we focused on accessibility and successfully confirmed that personal computers worldwide can operate the network successfully through the testnet. After the mainnet launch, we will focus on enhancing usability by expanding the market areas, such as DePIN AppStore and the RWA marketplace.
DePIN AppStore
Users can provide and purchase computing resources through OverProtocol. OverNode will provide a DePIN AppStore so that people can distribute and download DePIN applications to provide and purchase computing resources from other users. This will maximize utility with storage provision, computation offloading, GPU utilization, and daemons for DeFis like oracles or liquidations. Users who run a node will get additional yield through the DePIN applications, maximizing the utility of the computing resources.
RWA Marketplace
There are various assets in the world, but we are focusing on the voucher market first, especially vouchers for K-cultures like K-Beauty, K-Pop, K-Stay, K-food, and so on, since we are based in Korea. Among them, K-Beauty is the first target to build a market so that anyone can easily trade those vouchers globally, providing finance to sellers, distribution margin for investors, and the opportunity to buy cheaply for buyers. We will expand this market to other K-cultures and global primitive markets.
DAO Treasury Boost
We are now building an ecosystem in the early stage, even before the mainnet launch, welcoming users and builders. Node validation is the most primitive feature to build a community, but not all users have personal computers or want to run a node on physical devices. So, we allocate a DAO treasury that will boost the ecosystem. This treasury will be operated by DAO, where node validators and Nether NFT stakers will determine how to use the funds through votes. Initially, it will be allocated to Palm Staking and gradually moved to other pools. Thus, users can continuously contribute to the ecosystem by provisioning liquidity and receiving rewards.
Over the Rainbow
We have also allocated some portion of the funds to support ecosystem builders. Over the Rainbow is an open platform where anyone can apply for grants and get support for development. The winners can run lightweight nodes and also run validators with the grants to contribute to and get support from the protocol. The detailed announcement for Over the Rainbow will be disclosed soon.
2025
Microfinance
We will focus on another strong point of blockchain, which is 'Direct finance,' especially in the realm of microfinance. Since users on OverProtocol have a cash flow (called $Overflow), we can implement microfinance using this cash flow as collateral. This means that we can borrow money directly from the protocol, bypassing traditional financial institutions. This financing approach will create significant synergy when combined with the DePIN AppStore and RWA Marketplaces. We are currently designing the optimal structure for this feature and will disclose it next year.
Cashflow Streaming
Cash flow can be streamed to pay for other services or goods. For example, if you run a validator, you can use your cash flow to pay for your telecom bills, rent, and so on. Moreover, you can pipeline your cash flows directly to these expenses. Alternatively, you could lend your staked Over tokens to these services, allowing you to focus on more important matters without worrying about missing payments. In the near future, anyone—not just real estate owners—will be able to generate cash flows and utilize them freely within OverProtocol. We are developing mechanisms for money streaming and pipelining and are also attracting companies that offer subscription-based services.
Standalone Dapp
OverProtocol provides a lightweight node that anyone can run on their personal computer. This enables us to create standalone dapps that operate on the blockchain without the need for web servers. Running on users' computers, these standalone dapps achieve complete censorship resistance and provide an unstoppable app environment, eliminating concerns about server shutdowns. This approach will significantly reduce operational costs for dapps and lower their fees. At this stage, we are ushering in a new version of the decentralized web.
Superlight Node
Even though Ethanos has made it possible to run nodes on personal computers, we are still striving for more. Our ultimate goal is to make the node runnable on mobile devices. To achieve this, further optimization techniques are required. We are currently designing the Superlight node structure with more sophisticated optimization technologies, such as smart contract partial pruning. We have also studied blockchain database optimization techniques (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10416828) to accelerate synchronization and execution times and will soon enhance OverProtocol.
Conclusion
We are paving the way to solve real-life problems using blockchain technology, creating new infrastructure that empowers individuals. It’s time to shift our focus from blockchain-specific issues, such as scalability and data availability, to the broader real-life challenges that blockchain can address. Join us at OverProtocol and be part of crafting a bold new future in the blockchain era. Stay tuned for the upcoming launch of the mainnet.
I've been there since day one and I've learned a lot from the project. I hope everything comes to fruition and that it's a tremendous success.
This is huge