THORCHAIN 2022 MILESTONES

After a year that could best be described as volatile, explosive, and full of growth, THORChain is set to surge into 2022 as a mature network. One that now boasts significantly greater stability and far fewer vulnerabilities thanks to the tireless work of the THORChain core devs, Nine Realms, THORSec, and all of the many community contributors who endlessly push the project forward.

So, what exactly can we expect 2022 to hold in store for the THORChain Protocol? Let’s dig in.

MainNet

MainNet will see the keys to the kingdom of Asgard (literally) handed over to node operators (validators). In fact, this was achieved last week, when mimir control was transitioned to node operator control in the latest update to the THORChain code. This is just one of the requirements for the decentralization of THORChain. The ratio which governs the “hard cap” which will replace the “soft liquidity cap” system currently in place, was recently adjusted to 55% of bonded $RUNE.

The protocol status required to achieve mainnet has been discussed at length over the past year. The following is the bare minimum, and further requirements may be added in the coming weeks as mainnet nears. Most, if not all of these requirements have already been met, as the team rounds the final bend towards announcing Mainnet. #RAISETHECAPS

• Increase TVL through bonding incentives and new higher LP yield

• Maintain current number of active nodes and sharded Asgard Vaults over weeks of smooth network operations and node churns
• Maintain protocol stability without exploits
• Hardware Wallet support (Ledger)
• No emergency mimir control halts for 60 days, complete transition to node mimir control
• TERRA live on StageNet

MainNet Milestones are still in discussion. Milestones will be updated here: https://gitlab.com/thorchain/thornode/-/issues/1188

DOGE

As we await the last few items on the list above to run their course, THORChain has synced with the Dogecoin blockchain in order to launch the $DOGE trading pool. Dogecoin is the first chain to be added to THORChain in over 9 months.

TERRA/LUNA

Next in the queue, and directly after the launch of $DOGE, will be the $UST and $LUNA pools. While no deadline has been announced, it has been widely discussed amongst the devs that these will likely launch in mid-Q1 likely just before the requirements are met for Mainnet.

ATOM

The bridge for $ATOM is already built and will hit Stagenet as soon as $LUNA and $UST go live on Chaosnet.

THORFi

THORFi refers to the suite of financial products and features that are planned for the THORChain ecosystem in 2022. As with all things TC, THORFi revolves around $RUNE. Some of the exciting features mentioned over the past year in this category include:

• Synths
• Cross-chain Savings Account
• Cross-chain Lending
• Composite Assets
• THOR.USD

THORFi products are expected to significantly increase demand for $RUNE. This is because $RUNE is the essential ingredient in every one of them. Essentially, in order to activate any synth feature, users must lock $RUNE into the protocol where it will remain as long as the product is in use. This will not only drive demand and upward price action for $RUNE, but increase network security as greater and greater sums of $RUNE are locked.

Once THORSwap (A main THORChain user interface) has built support for synths on stagenet, 9 Realms plans to launch a war games of sorts called “THORGames” in order to test the functionality and debug the new feature before pushing it to Mainnet. #ACTIVATETHESYNTHS

THORGames/WARGames: Incentivising stress-testing of synths. https://twitter.com/THORChain/status/1480668908575084546?s=20

Vault Nodes

This feature is proposed with the intention of increasing network bonds. With heaps of $RUNE held by many long term investors in the project remaining idle, outside the network protocol, Vault Nodes are proposed to incentivize a mechanism to further increase TVL and bonded $RUNE. While there are roughly just 75 wallets holding 200k $RUNE or more, there are far more wallets holding not insignificant, but more moderate sums which, if bonded, would increase community involvement in securing the network. Thus, a proposal was made to allow for a sum as small as 10k $RUNE to be bonded as a Vault Node, or “Lite Node.” This may or may not develop into an option which includes even smaller sums of bonded $RUNE delegated to Vault Node operators in an effort to further reduce the technical requirements for participation in Vault Nodes.

An additional design just recently implemented will see nodes earn block rewards commensurate to their bond size, increasing the incentive to bond greater sums of $RUNE to the network. Currently, all nodes earn equally, regardless of bond size.

New Chains

Further down the list of priorities is the continued rollout of additional chains. The following are likely to be the focus after $TERRA and $ATOM are added in late Q1:

• Decred
• Dash
• Solana
• Zcash
• Monero
• Haven

THORNames

A service launched in the early months of summer 2021, THORNames rollout was halted temporarily, but is expected to go live in 2022. Similar to Ethereum ENS names, THORNames offers a vanity naming service for THORChain wallet addresses.

“THORNames, aka vanity addresses allow anyone to register cross-chain wallet addresses to a 1–30 long string of hexadecimal characters which include special characters -_+. This makes them compatible to represent emojis ⚡️”

THORChain Cross-Chain Aggregator

Later this year, expect the newly designed cross-chain aggregator to get implemented into the THORChain protocol. This will literally explode the use cases for THORChain, as any DEX will be able to route their order liquidity through the all new aggregator. Below is a tweet thread which includes some examples of how this will work.

https://twitter.com/THORChain/status/1481099843171143680

Wallets & Interfaces

A handful of very exciting products and services that are built on THORChain are being launched in 2022.

The four that have just launched, or are premiering in Q1 2022 are THORWallet, Dragon’s DEX, Defispot, and Ferz wallet respectively. The latter is currently distributing invitations to the THORChain community.

Throughout 2022, lead interface THORSwap is anticipated to integrate Ledger support for all UTXO chains for both their desktop and web interfaces.

Trust Wallet has been building code to implement THORChain into their backend since the proposal to do so was voted on last year.

Various other integrations are also expected in 2022 as THORChain’s “Affiliate Fee” model, and “cross-chain swaps” incentivize many more wallets and exchanges to join the ecosystem.

See our content write-ups for more info on these exciting ecosystem projects: Defispot, Dragons DEX, Ferz Wallet and a THORWallet Q1 2022 Roadmap here.

Planned Obsolescence

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, at some point in 2022, it is anticipated that THORChain will enter “Planned Obsolescence”. What does this mean you ask? Planned obsolescence will be the slow process of the core dev team gently relinquishing control of the network incrementally, as new dev teams, treasurers, and security auditors step up from the community. This was always intended, and will signal the true maturity of the network as it achieves the decentralized, autonomous, community and node operated status it was designed for. Core devs will remain in contact, but will not maintain any of the governing powers currently under their control.

With so much progress happening, it’s easy to see why we’re confident that 2022 will be the most transformative and important year for THORChain to date. If you want to dig into granular explanations about the milestones discussed in this article, we recommend beginning with the latest “Weekly Dev Report.” Links to all the specific PR’s and dev comments relevant to the recent accomplishments on the THORChian protocol discussed in this article are available in that report here.

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