What’s next for MARKET Protocol?

Our v2 Roadmap and an MKT update

Seth Rubin
MARKET Protocol
4 min readJul 12, 2019

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Launching on mainnet is a major milestone and we’re thankful to our team and supporters who got us here!

First — We’re Listening to our users and our community — You!

We want to know what worked and what didn’t. What was hard to understand? How can we improve? Hop into our Discord and let us know.

MARKET Protocol by the numbers

Since launching MARKET Protocol, MARKET Protocol Exchange (MPX), and the minting platform (Polymer) on mainnet less than three weeks ago, we have been pleased with the traction.

  • 300+ Registered users on MPX
  • Over 150 completed trades
  • 55,000+ DAI traded in Position Token Volume
  • Over 150,000 DAI locked into smart contracts using Polymer
  • 150% week over week growth in new traders on MPX

Over 100 new users received more than 20,000 MKT for participating in a series of activities on MPX which leads to MKT, how it fits into the ecosystem.

How is the token currently used within the network?

  • On MPX, anyone can mint Position Tokens by depositing collateral and receive a discounted minting fee if paid in MKT. Fees can also be paid in the collateral token (DAI) but without the discount.
  • Starting August 1st, and with each subsequent contract settlement 25% of the MKT used to pay fees will be burned (until version 2).
  • Protocol governance and risk management decisions will be made by MKT token holders. For example, voting on which synthetic assets will be listed will take place on a soon to be released dashboard.

We are exploring a few different mechanisms on token distribution including an IEO/ICO. For now, limited quantities of MKT may be purchased directly on MPX.

v2 Roadmap

Market Protocol v2 focuses on expanding the ecosystem and introducing governance mechanisms for decentralizing key components of the protocol. With v2 MKT token holders will begin to secure the network through staking.

Planned Enhancements:

A burn mechanic will be implemented at the protocol level.

By staking MKT, participants can perform work on the network and are compensated by the fees generated by applications on the network.

To encourage development and enhance the network, all of the collected fees will be allocated as follows:

  • 70% to the developer/application that submitted the transaction generating the fee.
  • 20% added to the network fee pool distributed to 1.) MKT holders who assist in settlement resolution and 2.) MKT holders who assist with governance decisions
  • 10% burned

MKT holders may validate oracle settlement values by staking their tokens.

  • If the settlement value is approved, yes votes share pro rata in the 20% network fee pool.
  • If settlement is disputed, it will be further validated against a decentralized oracle pool provided by the Chainlink network.
  • In the case of a successful dispute, those that participated will be rewarded with the fee pool.
  • In the case of a failed dispute, those that participated will have their staked MKT slashed 5% and redistributed with the fee pool.
  • While a user can assist in approving a settlement value with their collateral locked in the contract, it is required to use staked MKT to open or take part in a dispute. This ensures that valid contracts settle in a timely manner while invalid contracts are properly challenged and appropriate penalties applied.

MKT is used for ecosystem governance to help determine future fee allocations, adjustments and protocol direction.

If you’d like to participate further in the forward development of these concepts, please join us in our Discord #governance channel

Ecosystem Expansion:

Beyond protocol enhancements which will deliver more decentralization and value to the network, we will also be rolling out new layer 3 products. The first two layer 3 products on MARKET Protocol are our exchange, MPX. As well as our synthetic asset minting/redeeming platform Polymer.

Next on the horizon is the first third-party implementation — an exciting project building a BTC hashrate index on top of MARKET Protocol. Please take a look at CarboClan’s Tokenized Synthetic PoW Mining Contract.

We also have several new applications we are building internally which will generate more usage within the network contributing to the overall network fee pool.

The first thing we’d like to announce is Crobar. An application which delivers a user-friendly way to gain safe leveraged exposure to synthetic assets without all of the overhead of a full exchange interface. We cover this in more detail in a later post.

After that, we’re looking at different types of apps utilizing MARKET Protocol contracts to easily hedge risk or create long-term exposure to synthetic assets.

We’re also looking forward to seeing what you build or having you join the ecosystem and contribute in other ways.

A bit more about MKT:

There are 600,000,000 MKT tokens and no more will ever be created. Approximately 13% of the total supply has been distributed to early investors, team members and advisors. Another 12% is allocated to these groups and will be distributed over the next two years. We expect MKT

30 percent of the tokens are allocated to private sales and any upcoming token sales. 27.5 percent of the tokens will go toward continued development and enhancement of the protocol. 15 percent will be used for partnerships with other applications or exchanges. 10 percent is earmarked for both team and bounties for liquidity or other participation and 5 percent goes to our advisors. These amounts are subject to change.

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