Roadmap

Approach:

In undertaking an enterprise as massive as reforming social media, it is critical to give the proper attention to each of the individual project components necessary to succeed. In our case, the Mercury Protocol demands sustained excellence in underlying technology, business partnerships, and public interest. Of those three factors, business partnerships and public interest are rendered null if the technology cannot deliver.

Therefore, while we are already working with other development teams to discuss integrations of GMT, we are primarily devoted to building a truly capable technical foundation for tokenizing social media and communication apps. Once we feel the Mercury Protocol is technologically sound and ready for production grade traffic, we will shift our focus to business partnerships and growing the Mercury user network as we continue to build out the protocol’s capabilities.

A Note On The Phases:

The roadmap below details our development plans. Since some project elements may move faster and others slower based on the rate of team expansion and throughput, we will update this roadmap quarterly to properly reflect the work accomplished and new goals ahead.

Given that we chose to name the Mercury Protocol after the Roman messenger god, we elected to name the phases after other Roman gods that fit the nature of each phase.

Phase 1 Image
Jupiter (also known as Zeus,) was the king of the gods. Just as he was the precursor to all, these first critical steps in the Mercury project will set the technical foundation for years to come.
  • Hire more blockchain, iOS, Android, QA, Web, and Java engineers to increase project throughput. A complete up-to-date list of available positions can be found here
  • File to get GMT on Apple’s list of approved tokens for App Store
  • Research and develop paying user transaction fees with ERC20 tokens
  • Reduce gas fees to scalable numbers for micro-transactions and release Dust with GMT features on Mainnet
  • Develop reputation system built on metrics of user activity level and quality of engagement within Mercury network applications
  • Research, design, and develop blockchain based content; architect the possible methods of storing and accessing data for use within Broadcast and other apps, starting with user profiles
  • Begin developer relations for Mercury Protocol to identify interest, product needs, and onboarding pain points for integrating parties
  • Begin maintaining documentation to onboard new developer teams integrating GMT and minimize development time cost
  • Grant User Growth Pool rewards to early adopters of Mercury within Dust and grow the network sooner to capitalize on compounding networking effects
  • Abstract the protocol from Dust to make it application agnostic and open-source it
Phase 2 Image
It is said that Mercury (also known as Hermes,) lent his winged sandals to Perseus to help him defeat Medusa. Similarly, in this phase we will begin working with other development teams in earnest to build a network capable of going toe-to-toe with the current titans of the communication industry.
  • KYC solution for users to withdraw GMT from their Mercury wallets
  • Research and develop machine-learning defense solutions to malicious manipulation of GMT rewards and user reputation mechanics
  • Design client and backend frameworks for easier third party integrations
  • Develop Broadcast app with blockchain-based user profiles and posts
  • Improve documentation and provide developer support to partnered applications integrating GMT
  • Solution for other developers to easily convert GMT to fiat to reduce time to revenue flow
  • User Growth Pool grants to users of Dust and other integrating apps to continue to grow the Mercury network
Phase 3 Image
This phase is named after Mars (also known as Ares,) the god of war, as it marks the readiness of the Mercury Protocol technology to undertake the global campaign to displace the traditional advertising based revenue model of communications.
  • Release Broadcast Beta with proof-of-concept platform-agnostic content
  • Fund growth of Dust, Broadcast, and other apps through User Growth Pool grants
  • Develop iOS, Android, Web, and backend frameworks for easier third party integrations and faster network growth
  • Develop bug bounty system to incentivize peer review of the protocol
  • Host a hackathon to promote innovative product ideas based on the Mercury Protocol
  • Evangelize the protocol at developer conferences around the world to spread awareness and collect developer and user feedback