Killing it: The Project Hydro Roadmap
Yes, the title is a bit misleading, and of course we don’t actually mean we are killing off the roadmap. In fact we in terms of development, Project Hydro is pushing hard and hitting targets left right and centre.
Killing it
Informal: to do something extremely well, performing at the highest level
Also see: crushing it
In this article we explain what we have built, how that fits into the Hydro ecosystem and the related tokenomics.
The Hydro Approach
While many other projects are floundering with creating a single protocol, Project Hydro and the community have been quietly creating and developing multiple protocols and platforms. That’s not to say that all other projects are not achieving anything; there are some wonderful projects out there who we greatly admire and who are building great things. It’s just that there are a lot of projects that simply build nothing, or have completely shut down, even though they have been funded by millions in ICO money.
Before anyone mentions price or marketing we are well aware of the need to generate traction and awareness — the open-source project has limited funds available and so prioritises development over everything else. This article relates to the roadmap and the development that has taken place and not price, exchanges, or marketing.
It’s not easy to build on a severely restricted budget, but we have shown that it is possible via hard work, dedication and a fantastic developer community. Last year we published a series of visualizations that show the amount of work that goes into building across the open source ecosystem.
The below example shows the development on just one of the Hydro protocols across all GitHub repositories (up until September 2019).
The project is proud of what it has achieved but as they say, the proof is in the pudding, so what exactly has Project Hydro built in the past 24 months?
The Roadmap
The Project Hydro Roadmap consists of five key areas, each with individual protocols (some will point out that there are six but we will get onto that later*), as well as a dApp Store and dApps. These are as follows:
- Raindrop: comprises two authentication protocols that allows user accounts and databases to be secured by blockchain.
- Snowflake: an identity protocol that empowers construction of complex digital identities. This enables instant account onboarding, global ID passports, and when combined with the Hydro Raindrop, secure authentication of end-users.
- Tide: a series of payments protocols that tie together with Raindrop and Snowflake to power blockchain based payments systems.
- Ice: a document management protocol.
- dApp Store: the world’s first fully open-source dApp Store.
- Events dApp: strictly speaking this Eventbrite style open-source dApp isn’t on the Roadmap but it is live on testnet
- Art dApp: a dApp to allow the registering, claiming and transferring of digital art.
*We are aware that Mist, the AI phase of the roadmap is not in this list. We are not trying to reinvent the wheel and are quite happy to cut areas as and when it is appropriate. At present there are other projects making great strides in AI so we are watching what they are doing with great interest.
So that’s the roadmap but where are we now and why are we ‘killing it’?
Mainnet
Raindrop — Authentication
Tokenomics:
In server-side Raindrop, this takes the form of an on-chain micro transaction, that must be conducted in Hydro, before access to a system is granted.
In Client-side Raindrop, any party that wishes to onboard users into the Hydro ecosystem by creating HydroID’s, must maintain a balance of Hydro ensuring that they will be good actors within the ecosystem.
Snowflake — Identity
Tokenomics:
In order for a Smart Contract to be able to be set as a resolver, it needs to pay a fee in Hydro. Since Snowflake acts as a passport for identification information, the HYDRO token is a gateway fee, allowing dApps into the network and streamlining user interactions.
The HYDRO token is not only intended to be a gateway into the ecosystem of resolvers built on top of Snowflake, but also a centerpiece for convenient programmatic token transfers between users and resolvers. Snowflake allows users to set specific allowances so that resolvers can withdraw HYDRO, with limits on allowed withdrawals set on a per-resolver basis.
More specifically, Snowflake provides a powerful set of tools for dApp developers to easily monetize their products.
Hail — Tokenisation
Tokenomics:
The Hail protocol combines all of the above token uses from Raindrop, Snowflake, and Tide to allow for the most robust security tokenization protocol. It allows for Dividend payments to Snowflake wallet holders in HYDRO from admin pro-rata. For different HST’s HYDRO tokens can be kept in an escrow smart contract within the ERC-1484 of the issuer until the offering is closed. If conditions in legal aren’t met, those HYDRO tokens are able to be released back to the ERC-1484 ID of the subscriber.
dApp Store
Tokenomics:
See Snowflake.
Testnet
Ice — Document Management
Tokenomics:
Tokens are used in core functions of the protocol, such as document stamping — to incentivise good actors, and sealing — to hold documents in escrow. Tokens can also be used in dApps to integrate with document signing software. Finally, tokens can be used in a notary dApp, as a staking mechanism, to encourage only the highest quality notaries.
Tide — Payments
Tokenomics:
The movement of HYDRO tokens as a payment solution is perhaps the most simple and most common use case in the Hydro ecosystem; however, there are many other applications of the Hydro token within Tide, including:
- Subscription: When a user wants to pay for a subscription or recurring payment for something, they will use HYDRO tokens to pay the service providers, whether on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual, etc. basis
- Interest: HYDRO tokens can be held in escrow for interest payments, helping to prevent fraud
- Coupon: POS companies and businesses can use the coupon smart contract to give discounts on purchases using HYDRO in brick and mortar or e-commerce marketplaces
- Remittance: ability to send money to anyone around the world by using HYDRO
- Lottery: Smart contract for random number generator where the reward is paid out using HYDRO
- Invoicing: Companies can create invoices and charge payments in HYDRO on a certain date, and request a specific amount
- Gift Cards: Brick and Mortar and e-commerce stores can preload a certain amount of HYDRO and tie it to a user’s Snowflake, which can be used to purchase physical or digital goods
The HYDRO token is the driving force behind Tide and is essential to all payments through the Hydro Ecosystem. Encouraging massive business adoption means HYDRO can become an accepted form of payment globally, especially in markets with large unbanked populations. This will lead to lower fees, faster economic growth, and higher standards of living for many lower income business owners.
Events dApp
https://rinkeby.hydroevents.io/
Tokenomics:
Charging of event attendance in HYDRO. See Snowflake.
Art dApp
Tokenomics:
See Snowflake.
The future
To date Project Hydro has built the foundations of a solid open-source ecosystem with five protocols on mainnet and further ten on testnet and undergoing auditing. Moving forward protocols will be pushed to the mainnet, via a comprehensive auditing process. Management of the protocols will continue and the open-source community are welcome to make pull requests to add features or further secure the ecosystem.
Everything is open-source so anybody is welcome to fork, create, and build additional dApps and protocols for the ecosystem and they are. Keep watching for some interesting third-party development coming up.
If you want to chat you can find the team via one of our social channels:
- Telegram: https://t.me/projecthydro
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/HydroBlockchain
- Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/projecthydro
- Discord: https://discord.gg/UTQQ54P
- Website: https://projecthydro.org/
