Lock Roadmap
Development Plan for 2020
Hello fellow Lockers,
As you may have read in our introductory article, we released a functional MVP of an application built using the Lock Protocol in December. We have had the contracts audited, twice, which can be verified here.
We aren’t slowing down , and have big plans for 2020! We are excited to share our development plan, as well as some of the motivations behind our decisions.
Current Focus — LOCK V1
After releasing our MVP and receiving initial feedback from our users, we have learned quite a bit about what to do to bring Lock to v1. This is the primary focus before we can begin integrations with partners.
- UX Improvements — We learned that we need to make the options when users lock their tokens clearer, and show the progress of a transaction once it has been submitted.
- Show upcoming airdrops in the UI — Users want insight into upcoming airdrops and to be able to ensure that they are eligible.
- Show the amount user will receive for a particular airdrop — Users want to see how many tokens they were getting for each airdrop.
- Allow user to make multiple deposits of the same token into one lock — Users wanted to be able to create “savings accounts” where they can keep an asset locked until achieved a predetermined financial goal.
- Allow locks to unlock when a specified number of tokens are locked, rather than having duration as the only condition for release — Users can set the amount of tokens that they want to save up to and then have the lock release once they hit their target.
- Upload multiple locks at one time, each with a different beneficiary — In the case of vesting tokens for a later date, an employer requested that we have batch uploading so they can lock employee tokens for each employee all at once.
- Change fee structure to to be tiered based on Lock amount instead of one fee for all — We are making fees fair so users aren’t being charged too much and at the same time we can still operate effectively. Tiered fees make users who are storing large amounts of tokens pay lower rates.
There are also some changes to our backend to ensure that we will not have to change contracts very often, and make the administration process more effective (but of course still non-custodial).
Up Next — Integrations
Lock is a protocol that will be easily embeddable into a range of other types of applications. The organization types that we are integrating with initially are DeFi Interfaces and Dapps.
DeFi Interfaces will be able to add Lock functionality to their user dashboards and provide a simple way for users to lock assets they are holding in either a traditional or smart contract wallet.
Dapps will be able to add a button to their applications to make it easy to lock assets directly in their application.
Centralized Crypto Custodians are also potential users of Lock and will be able to streamline the process of getting their customer’s Ethereum assets into a safe location and create verifiable proofs of locked assets.
There are two primary methods of integration that we are focusing on — an SDK and direct contract interactions. The SDK will be useful to organizations who do not wish to directly interface with Solidity contracts. Direct smart contract integrations will be most useful for groups that are focused on smart contracts rather than a front end user experience.
Future Development Plans
We expect our work with v1 and the integration tools to take us through the end of Q2, but afterwards our focus will be to further decentralize the application, provide comprehensive notifications to Lock users, release the Lock DAO and the LOCK token.
Notification System
When using Lock right now, there is no way to be notified about a lock’s duration completing or when a user has become a beneficiary of a lock. Once the SDK is complete and integrations with other projects have started we will add the ability for users to be notified via email or Twitter.
Further Decentralization
Ensuring that our application is always live is a core ask from our users. We will move away from traditionally hosted front end to an IPFS based setup for hosting as long as usability isn’t severely compromised. There will still be some centralized components like sending out notifications, but all core components will be decentralized.
Lock DAO
The Lock DAO will be our biggest step towards complete decentralization. The main components of the Lock DAO include:
- Making decisions for emergency unlocks
- Making decisions for adding new tokens
- Allocating capital for next features to build out
- Profit sharing model for DAO members
LOCK Token
The LOCK token will be an alternative payment method for using the protocol. Instead of the standard fee model, users can use LOCK tokens to get a cheaper rate on their locks (depending on how much they are locking). This token acts as a productive loan for the protocol (as we receive capital before the locks take place). The important thing to note is this will not affect usability of the platform if the users do not wish to purchase LOCK tokens. More details on this soon.
Lock Until ‘any-thing’ Happens
Currently Lock supports locking tokens until a specific duration has passed. With v1 we will be adding the ability release lock on the condition of a predetermined total amount deposited in one lock (like if you are funding a project or saving for a large purchase). We will continue to expand upon the possible variables for locks to release towards the end of 2020.
Conclusion
As our platform grows, Lock aims to become the universal platform for locking, storing and allocation of Ethereum based tokens.
Do you have any other use cases for the platform that we haven’t thought of yet? Are there any tokens you would like to see listed that we don’t have yet? Feature requests? If so, please share in the comments below or contact us at hello@lock.finance.
In the next article we will expand on our use cases article and to provide details on what integrations with Lock can look like.
Be sure to follow us on these channels:
Website | Medium | Twitter | Github
You can also join our Telegram here.
And remember to try the application here.
Thanks for reading!
