Mean DAO Roadmap for Q4–2021

TL;DR

1. Q3 was crazy good, launched MeanFi Beta on mainnet, and are now looking forward to the Solana Ignite adrenaline rush hangover after Oct 15th, which is the deadline for submission. We’ll probably take a 2 or 3-hour break after that, and watch a movie together or something.
2. Q4 we are launching MeanFi v1, with tons of stability improvement, dedicated nodes, better routing optimizations for the aggregator, a fresh block tempo dedicated contract, and more.
3. Q4 will also mark the launch of the MEAN governance token and portal. We have very big plans for MEAN token holders that go well beyond the voting utility 👀

Genesis and Q3–2021 Recap

Even though we had been thinking about starting a new project for a while, it never felt like the right moment or having a unique enough value proposition, or being ready enough to actually do it.

Everything changed in May 2021 when we started to look around for solutions to pay salaries in crypto to different associates and contractors in an efficient way. We found Sablier, and it was cool with the ERC-20 streaming concept and everything, but very expensive (b/c eth gas) and very limited in many ways that didn’t work for us. Lots of overhead in pre-funding the contract with months of salary for a person that we, as a business, didn’t have enough cash flow to do beforehand.

Then, we explored other solutions, like BitWage, an elegant and professional approach, but we fundamentally didn’t like anything centralized or where we didn’t have the options of self-custody.

We thought we weren’t asking for much, our wish-list was pretty simple:

1. Cost-effective with relatively low fees that won’t eat into the salary
2. Flexible in the when and how much was required to pre-fund the contract
3. It had to be permissionless, trustless, and allow for self-custody of funds

Turns out, we found NOT A SINGLE PROJECT across the top 10 blockchain networks that could do this… and that, naturally, meant we had to build it ourselves.

After picking the Solana as the winner network for its speed, finality, language, community, and many other things, we were off to the races to start planning for and building the project.

The birth of Mean *

By the end of June, we had the core team assembled, a white paper for the Money Streaming Program, and we were having Rust, Solana, Web3, Sealevel, Anchor, and React for breakfast, lunch and dinner… and dreams… every day.

Then things changed AGAIN dramatically in June, as we saw the moves from the government of El Salvador, and then in July after we cried with the Cuban People raising their voice against a 60-year dictatorial government.

Both cases coming from different angles but centered around the monetary policies that give or takes away economic freedoms for an entire nation. Both cases touched home, deeply and hard, because all of us in the core team are from Latin origins (specifically Cuban-origins), and for once, we felt we had the tools to do something about it.

All of these were further signs confirming the direction of the project. Keep course, the world needs this, the world needs us.

We wrapped the quarter with:

1. A beta version of the MeanFi app deployed to the Solana Mainnet
2. A beta version of the Mean Protocol contracts deployed to Solana Mainnet
3. A community that went from the 5 members of the core team to over 1,200 engaged Tweeter followers and Discord members.
4. Hundreds of connected accounts, thousands of transactions, and dozens of feedback points and recommendations given by users.
5. A relentless focus that makes us wake up every day to develop and grow Mean DAO, our products, and our community with the intensity of an unstoppable hurricane.

Read the details of the official launch HERE.

Q4 Roadmap

The Q4 roadmap comes on the heels of a hot Q3, and we are planning for an even meaner delivery schedule. Q4 is known as crypto-quarter every year for a reason… historically, everything looks up and to the right. So, with this in mind, here are some of the Milestones we have ahead:

1. Launching the Mean DAO Governance Token MEAN. This is huge, and if you care about the mission, keep close… ‘nuff said.
2. Launching MeanFi v1, the official stable version of the app will go live before the year closes. We plan to include tons of new stuff, like staking, farming, and other features for MEAN Token holders.
3. Launching Mean Protocol v1, the official stable version of the Protocol. This includes optimizations for the Hybrid Aggregator Router, the DDCA and Block Tempo programs coming to mainnet, and automated security audits for the protocol.

The most anticipated part of Q4 according to our own Mean Apes is, without a doubt, the launch of the MEAN gov token. So, here’s a sneak peek of what’s to come:

Get Involved

This is only the beginning of our young project. We are super excited to embark on this journey with the community and our users. Stay in touch with our progress every week, and join the DeFi revolution by checking our website, joining the Mean DAO Discord, and following @MeanFinance on Twitter.