Waku Product Milestones 2023 === See 2023 Logos objectives. TLDR: > Our focus is on: > > - Rebuilding Communications > - Defining our Projects & Token models > - Performing a crypto-equivalent of Series B fund-raise, by selling a % of our reserve. > - Performing a crypto-equivalent of a Corporate Spin-off > - Require projects in production to gain market traction & revenue Waku's priorities for 2023 are: 1. Secure Scalability: Proven scalability of the Waku protocol in terms of users and messages 2. Production Readiness: Stability, performance and functional relevance of Waku software and protocols beyond the scalability dimension. 3. Growth: Adoption of Waku beyond Status with developer community growth and early stage project adoption. 4. Generating Revenue (Sustainability & Longevity): Bridging product and research to shape the future of Waku tokenization and incentivization models. This ties in to Logos's priorities as: **Scalability (1) and Production readiness (2):** For Waku to gain market traction and revenue, it needs to prove itself as a reliable technology. Decentralized communication is hard problem; Hence, multiple activities are necessary to demonstrate production readiness. Said activities being: - theoretical soundness of the protocols - dog fooding of the sofware - stress testing and other simulation runs The most novel part of Waku is the usage of a gossipsub model for tens of millions of the users. This would make Waku the largest gossipsub network in existence. Hence a focus on secure scalability as part of the production readiness objective. For the Status app to gain market traction and revenue, it needs to perform and provide a reliable UX, this can only be done if Waku also delivers. **Growth (3):** (1) & (2) enables Waku to be positioned as a solid option for Web3 communications. To then attract market traction, we need to raise the Waku brand awareness among the Web3 developers and project ecosystem. This is covered by the **Growth (3)** milestones. **Generating Revenue (4):** Finally, Waku's sustainability and revenue generation models are currently incomplete. Generative revenue is part of the Logos 2023 goals and included in Waku's milestones for 2023. ## 1. Secure Scalability ### Why Waku needs to deliver the level of scalability needed by the Status application to ensure the success of the Status app, including DDOS protection. Also, Waku needs to prove scalability capacity so external large platforms can adopt it with confidence. ### What - RFCs to define protocols and application guidelines to scale Waku securely in terms of nodes (users) and traffic (messages). - RFCs to define DDOS protection protocols. - RFCs to define the Status application protocols. - Implementations of RFCs above in Waku and Status software. - Simulations of the Waku network to demonstrate and study Waku's capacity. - Analysis, design and implementation of mitigation to scalability risks in the Status protocols. ### How - Work with Vac to produce secure scalability and DDOS protection strategies, in the form of RFCs. - Dependency on Vac to scale the message dissemination layer (i.e. gossipsub/Waku Relay). Includes sharding, shard discovery among other items. - Implement or work with Status core engineers to implement said strategies. - Work with Logo Distributed System Test team to simulate and stress test Waku software with target scale parameters. - Work with Vac and Status core engineers to define, analysis and mitigate risk of the Status application protocols. ### Epics 1. Waku network can support 10k users - Breakdown available at https://github.com/waku-org/pm/issues/12 - This includes (in rough order) research (Vac), engineering on both Waku (Waku Product) and Status Desktop (Status App) side, simulations (Logos Test). - Achieving the milestones mean that all above is complete and while the network may not have 10k node, we are confident we covered any aspect to achieve said target. 2. Waku network can support 1mil users - Similar structure to 10k milestone. ## 2. Production Readiness ### Why The ability to send and receive messages is critical to the success of the Status application. For this, Waku software needs to be stable, reliable and performing. This is in addition to the scalability dimension. ### What - Waku software is of high quality, highly performing, stable and bug free. - Waku protocols enable high quality implementation and fit to purpose functionalities for the users. - Waku software functionality fulfil platform and developers needs. - Including but not limited to the relay and light client protocols. ### How - Close collaboration with Status application and other platforms to dogfood the Waku implementations and protocols, fix bugs and improve protocol and software performance. - Work with Distributed System Test team to Improve release quality control with non-regression testing and interoperability testing as part of the release cycle. - Work with Distributed System Test team to improve release quality control and identify expected performance by running stress testing simulation and performance analysing as part of the release cycle. - Continuous effort to improve performance of Waku software in relation to its nature (e.g. nwaku memory and low-level performance, js-waku bundle size and browser API usage, etc) ### Epics 1. Restricted-run (light node) protocols are production ready (store, light push, filter, peer exchange, etc) - Enabling a decentralized yet reliable experience in the browser and mobile (Status mobile). - Hardening includes round of dogfooding with partner platforms such as Status, review of the protocol and reliabilty with inclusion in the quality process (non-regression, interop, performance) - Includes delivery of [Status MVP: CCs use Status Mobile](https://github.com/waku-org/pm/issues/8) 2. Peer management strategy for relay and light nodes are defined and implemented. They are available to operators with good default assumptions. 3. Quality processes are implemented for nwaku and go-waku - non regression (functional) testing as part of release cycle of nwaku and go-waku (aiming 2024 for js-waku) - interoperability testing nwaku-go-waku (adding js-waku in 2024) as part of release cycle of both nwaku and go-waku - non regression (performance) testing as part of release cycle of nwaku and go-waku (js-waku in 2024) - Note: strong dependency on Logos Distributed Systems Testing team. ## 3. Growth ### Why Waku is a public good infrastructure that harness the developer, platform, contributor and operator community to strengthen its USP: privacy-preserving, censorship-resistant, surveillance-prone and portable. To be successful and sustainable, Waku needs a strong community. ### What - An engaged large developer community. - Adoption of Waku by a sizeable number of platforms, focusing on early stage projects. - A community of operators running Waku nodes for the sake of supporting the network (see last section for incentives). ### How - Executing the [Waku Marketing Strategy](https://www.notion.so/Waku-Marketing-Strategy-75f2e99baa1f426c9a48cb023d5e9d84) with the support of Comms Hubs: - Revamp Waku asset contents (websites, documentation across all implementations) to convert leads and support marketing and biz dev efforts - Attend and present/run workshops at major Ethereum events - Register prizes at online and in-person hackathons - Curate bounties to grow and onboard community developers - Maintain relations with Waku platforms leads and current users - Continue the operator trial - Reduce any friction in the on-boarding of developers, platforms and operators. ### Epics 1. Define and track network and community metrics for continuous monitoring and improvement 2. Basic Dev Rel assets are delivered (continuation of 2022 milestones): js-waku/high-level/operator docs, outreach, lead conversion and community engagement processes are implemented 3. Executed an array of community growth activity, at a minimum: - Prizes at hackathons (targeting 8) - Workshops - Bounties published and delivered ## 4. Generating Revenue (Sustainability & Longevity) ### Why As part of the Logos strategy, Waku needs to generate revenue and have a clear road map to sustainability. To be widely adopted, Waku needs to gain social confidence that it will remain. Platforms must trust the Waku network and development effort have a sustainable model. For the Waku network to be sustainable, operators must trust the incentivization model is sound. ### What - RFCs to define protocols to incentivize operators to run Waku nodes. This includes customer-provider service models (e.g. service credentials) and overall network support models (e.g. RLN pool). - RFCs to define a RLN protocol likely to be adopted by Status application and other platforms. - RFCs to define extractable value from the network to fund research and development efforts (e.g. TVL and/or fees models) ### How - Work closely with Status app and other platforms to explain the potential incentivization and RLN model and better understand their business needs and restrictions - Work closely with the Vac Protocol Incentivization track to relay platform needs and potential business models - Work closely with the Logos Tokenomics team to help model the possible revenues and tokenomics of Waku ### Epics 1. Dogfooding of RLN by platforms has started - Delivery of Dev Rel asset such as documentation (high level and code), examples - Discussion with platforms (Status, and external) about usage of RLN - Push of RLN to developer community via bounties and hackathon prizes 2. First protocol to incentivize operators has been defined and rolled out on testnet - RFC defining how node operators can be incentivized to run Waku node has been defined - Note: strong dependency on Vac and the Logos Tokenomics team. --- # References - nwaku priorities: https://hackmd.io/@vac/main/%2Fo3B3t8waQQeQU2VALRhCpA