Stratis Roadmap & What the Near Future Holds

Stratis Roadmap

With Q4 2017 commencing in October, the Stratis project has made some amendments to the roadmap for the last quarter of the year.

Throughout the course of 2017, the Stratis team has delivered several key projects that have pushed the project forward including: Stratis Full Node, Breeze Wallet Alpha, and the Stratis Identity App (for Android).

As Stratis is aiming to be the #1 blockchain-as-a-service project, the delivery of development milestones is key to success. This success wouldn’t be possible without a clear vision, and this is what Stratis has shown with their newly updated roadmap to detail the goals of Q4 2017 and into early 2018.

Figure 1: Newly updated Stratis roadmap for Q4 2017 and early 2018.

Breeze Wallet Mainnet 

Starting in Q4 2017, Stratis aims to deliver multiple projects and make them available to the public.  According to the updated roadmap, the first goal of the team is to complete and segue the Breeze Wallet Beta onto the mainnet as it currently sits on the testnet (not ready for production at the current moment).

The Breeze Wallet focuses on developing a wallet that allows for seamlessly efficient private transactions across its network without the need for using a centralized mixing/tumbling service or an alternative cryptocurrency focused on privacy.  With privacy becoming more of an important aspect in all industries, the confidentiality and integrity of transactions must be ensured.  This will ultimately allow for mainstream adoption of blockchain technology by financial institutions and other industries.

There are a few key notions that TumbleBit provides:

1. Truly unlinkable and private transactions.
2. TumbleBit is fully compatible with the Bitcoin protocol.
3. Impossibility of any 3rd party from stealing transactions payments.

With the Breeze Wallet Beta release set to release in Q4 2017, we can see that the Breeze wallet will allow for easy exchanges from Stratis to Bitcoin and vice-versa.  The integration of the TumbleBit protocol in the Breeze wallet will not only allow cryptographically secure exchanges between Bitcoin and Stratis, but it will also be bulletproof against any type of manipulation and censorship attacks by any entity.

The increased level of privacy provided by this technology is expected to bring in many new traders and investors as the wallet will be the first to allow for private Bitcoin transactions through TumbleBit without the need for a centralized service.  Now that the Breeze Wallet Alpha has completed its stages, the Beta release in Q4 2017 will be the next release which will be pushed out onto the main network, which will in turn commence transactions powered on privacy-based technology.

Stratis Identity (iOS App)

One of the vision of Stratis is to incorporate identity management as one of the Stratis coins’ use cases in the real world.  As regulation of cryptocurrencies is becoming more of a reality and to truly envision a world with cryptocurrency being adopted on a mainstream level, identity management is a key aspect to cover.  With the release of sidechains in Q4 2017, software developers that aim to develop on the Stratis blockchain will be able to develop applications that focus strictly on identity management for businesses.

With the Stratis Identity app, personal and corporate identity management can be managed and verified on an immutable public ledger (immune to unauthorized changes) which can then be shared through social networks.  The Stratis Identity app can validate an identity or even documents.  Once this happens, data can be shared back and forth between businesses as an authorization of the individual has been confirmed (through proof of their identity using the Stratis Identity app).

Ultimately, this will allow businesses to avoid exposing any sensitive customer data.  The Stratis Identity app was released for Android as part of Q3 2017, but will be available to the remainder of users that use iOS devices such as the iPhone.

Stratis Academy Community Section

The team is looking to develop a Stratis Academy Community Section that will be focused around the C# / .NET developers that are looking to build blockchain applications on the Stratis blockchain.  Stratis is dedicated to building a global C# / .NET blockchain developer community by starting a community section in the Stratis Academy where developers can learn and put their skills to use.

Not only does this allow for developers to increase their knowledge of blockchain development, but it also powers the Stratis project as a larger influx of developers can later segue into becoming a part of the Stratis development team (once they’ve developed the right skillset).  This can be seen as a positive impact for both community developers as well as Stratis as its main goal and vision is to become the largest blockchain-as-a-service project.

Stratis Masternode Alpha

The main requirement for running a masternode in Stratis is 250,000 STRAT tokens.  This initial requirement isn’t dictated by Stratis, but by the underlying technology that powers its blockchain.  Since TumbleBit works better with a smaller number of running servers, the number of STRAT tokens has to be substantially larger to avoid many masternodes slowing down the technology and potentially breaking it.

In the near future, Stratis is aiming to have a multi-tier service for investors to run a node and earn on the side through its PoS (proof-of-stake) capability.  This means that investors who hold 1000 STRAT, 10,000 STRAT, or 100,000 STRAT will also be able to run a node.

Sidechains Alpha

This is something Stratis investors constantly talk about.  Stratis’ goal is become the one-stop shop to allow businesses to create blockchain applications and this will be done through the implementation of sidechains provided by the Stratis infrastructure.  Developers can seamlessly build their C#/.NET applications on a sidechain that a business “rents” or “purchases” without having to worry about learning a different proprietary language that isn’t as well known such as Solidity (main language for development in Ethereum).

With the use of sidechains, the main Stratis network can essentially avoid any congestions with activity that a business generates.  This will allow for a highly efficient and sustainable ecosystem that is organized based on businesses purchasing sidechains to act as an infrastructure for them to build any type of blockchain applications in C#/.NET.  This will be a big win for Stratis as we progress forward with blockchain technology becoming more and more utilized across the globe.

Investment Opinion: Deepak, Editorial Team

I have been an avid follower of the Stratis project for many months now and I am very impressed with the deliverables that Stratis has promised and come through with.  The updated roadmap has made it very clear to me as an investor and avid believer in the technology that Stratis is only moving forward in terms of their visions and goals.

I believe the implementation of the Breeze Wallet, once it enters the mainnet, will allow holders of Stratis and Bitcoin to conduct efficient and easy transactions back and forth while ensuring that the transactions remain private.

The Stratis Academy community section should bring in many developers from around the globe to work together to continue learning about blockchain technology, and potentially even becoming an asset to the Stratis team.  This benefits both the developers of the community and Stratis by propelling the use of blockchain technology forward.

The masternode tier program in the future should also be an interesting aspect to see since a lot of investors don’t hold a minimum of 250,000 STRAT to lock up as a masternode.  This shows that the team over at Stratis wants to make it fair for every investor involved, and not only whales, so that people can take advantage of the passive PoS (proof-of-stake) gains by locking up their Stratis tokens.

Lastly, the sidechains is what I’m personally really looking forward to as this will allow businesses to use the Stratis infrastructure to make their own applications which will not only push the Stratis ecosystem and project forward, but blockchain technology as a whole.

Whether you are a C# developer, business owner, or just an individual investor, Stratis is definitely a cryptocurrency that should be followed as it continues focusing on becoming the #1 BaaS (blockchain-as-a-service) infrastructure available around the globe.

I hope this article has given you more of an insight and understanding of the newly updated Stratis roadmap and what each stage means for the Stratis project.