2021 was an interesting year for Decentr, with many amazing highlights to be proud of. While we didn’t achieve everything we set out to do in 2021, we were still able to complete our most important milestones of the year: the release of our own native blockchain and the mainnet Decentr browser that is powered by it. These two critical achievements form the basis of everything we are now able to achieve in the future, and both our blockchain and our browser continue to improve as the days, weeks and months pass.
Before we get into the 2022 roadmap, we invite you to take a look back at some of our completed milestones for 2021, keeping in mind the second half of the year was predominantly focused on updating our browser, from version 1.0 to a current version of 1.15; 15 separate updates over the past 3 months.
Introducing the Decentr ($DEC) Uniswap Liquidity Rewards Program
Decentr & Ocean Protocol Form a Strategic Partnership
Decentr And Aleph.im Form a Strategic Partnership
Decentr and Public Mint Enter Strategic Partnership
Introducing the Decentr Mainnet and Mainnet Browser
Delegated Staking via the Decentr Browser is now Live!
Staking UI and Rewards Withdrawal Enabled Directly from the Decentr Browser!
Tell a Friend! The Decentr Referral Program is now Live!
We thank our community for their support and patience in 2021, and the roadmap below has taken into account your feedback on our work in 2021 and a more measured approach to 2022, that of “under promise and over deliver”.
Q1 2022
IBC Upgrade
The Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC) allows blockchains to talk to each other. As the backbone of the Cosmos ecosystem, IBC handles transport across different sovereign blockchains. This end-to-end, connection-oriented, stateful protocol provides reliable, ordered, and authenticated communication between heterogeneous blockchains.
By integrating the IBC, Decentr and the native DEC token will be able to easily integrate into a variety of blockchain projects almost seamlessly and allow new layers of utility for DEC with each integration.
Osmosis Listing
Osmosis is the leading DEX of the Cosmos ecosystem and by upgrading our native blockchain to support the Cosmos IBC, we will then have the ability to list the native DEC token on Osmosis. This follows the long term plan of eventually moving all activity, utility and trading, to the native DEC token and gives holders of DEC more options to trade DEC tokens on various venues.
By listing the DEC token on Cosmos based DEX’s, this allows users to trade DEC with next to no trading fees, removing a huge point of friction with the ERC20 token and Uniswap.
Custom Homepage
The custom homepage will be the first page the user sees when opening the browser. It will contain all valuable stats about our Decentr ecosystem, Decentr browser and your personal stats related to PDV.
This is part of our efforts to continually improve the UI of the browser and Decentr assets within the browser, making the browser more appealing to a mainstream demographic and a more professional product overall.
Decentr dSync
Decentr dSync will allow users to access bookmarks, history and passwords across multiple devices with the Decentr browser installed. Users who use the desktop client on multiple devices will have all their important information synced via their Decentr account, and likewise for desktop to mobile.
This also means that when setting up Decentr on a new device, users will simply need to sign into their Decentr account and their browser will sync everything they need, so they can start browsing with ease, straight away.
xDefi Integration
While the DEC wallet supports the native DEC token, a majority of our users need to install a third party wallet as their first action after installing the Decentr browser. By integrating xDefi wallet, users will have a ready to go wallet out of the box, and unlike MetaMask, a wallet that supports multiple assets across multiple chains.
xDefi supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Binance Chain, THORChain, Litecoin, Terra and Bitcoin Cash, with Cosmos support coming soon.
Auto Update for MacOS
While our current Windows installation currently supports auto updates (as will our mobile versions thanks to app stores), our Mac users currently have to download the new version and install it each time, a noticeable and often complained about point of friction for our users.
As we now have our installation certificate for MacOS, we are able to implement the auto update feature for Mac users also.
GDPR Compliance/Certification
To ensure data compliance we will engage a team of certified EU GDPR practitioners to undertake a gap analysis of our browser and blockchain and implement any feedback necessary to ensure ongoing data compliance.
We will be issued with the ISO/IEC 27701:2019 data privacy extension which outlines a framework for Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Controllers and PII Processors to manage data privacy. This reduces risk to the privacy rights of individuals and businesses downloading and browsing on Decentr by enhancing our existing information security management systems. This standard is a great way of demonstrating to our users and external and internal stakeholders that effective systems are in place to support GDPR compliance and other related privacy legislation.
By being a GDPR compliant browser, this sets us ahead of the likes of Chrome, Brave, Opera and allows Decentr to offer premium features that will give individual and business users’ peace of mind knowing their legal requirements have been met while they browse the internet with the Decentr browser. This reduces the risks of data breaches and hefty fines, with a suite of premium data protection services customised to individual business needs in development. These include an easy to use admin portal to design a business user’s preference centre, opt-in messages while keeping a GDPR compliant audit trail of consent.
Android Decentr Browser (Full Release)
An ongoing request from our community has been that of a mobile browser. We have been working on the beta release of the Android version throughout the year, however this version is lacking some of the core Decentr features and is more of a proof of concept/hello world version of the browser.
The full release of our Android browser will contain all the features of the desktop version and will mark the first mobile release in which Decentr users can Browse to Earn on mobile.
Q2 2022
Decentr dVPN
While this was one of the milestones we missed in 2021, this integration is one of the more exciting ones for Decentr. dVPN from Sentinel is not just an in-browser VPN, like the free VPN service we already provide, it interacts with the underlying OS and ensures all traffic on your machine, be it within or outside of the Decentr browser, is encrypted and passes through their VPN service.
This will allow Decentr users to access a cheap, paid for in crypto (you can use the DEC you earn via browsing to do so, directly within the browser) VPN service of a similar level to Express, Nord, Mullvad etc VPNs.
iOS Decentr Browser (Full Release)
Due to the onerous approval process for iOS applications, we are implementing the full version of the Android mobile browser and making sure everything works correctly there (as changes and updates can be processed extremely quickly on Android) and then rolling out this version to iOS users.
Like the Android version of the Decentr mobile browser, this release will contain all the features of the desktop version and will allow Decentr users to Browse to Earn on their iPhones and iPads.
Decentr “Twitter”
If you think of the current dHub/dFeed as the “Facebook” of Decentr, long detailed posts and a similar style UI, then Decentr “Twitter” is, as the name suggests, a feed more similar to Twitter for Decentr users. With censorship becoming more prevalent on social platforms, and with Twitter style news feeds being a more accessible way to access quick, breaking and more consumable information, we have been working on creating a separate component for the dHhub that allows users to follow other users and create and share shorter text/media posts.
Now we have ironed out the bugs in our desktop browser, and with the release of our mobile browser, past being paid to browse the broader Internet safely and securely, while retaining ownership of your own data, our goal is to make Decentr the social media platform of choice for those looking to communicate and be incentivised to do so in a decentralised and censorship resistant manner.
Decentr Governance Module
As our project name suggests, everything we do at Decentr is based around a decentralised future. With the release of our own blockchain and with nodes and staking implemented, our next big step towards that is the ability for community lead governance. By enabling the governance model on our platform, all users, even with the small amount of DEC, will be able to vote on or make proposals to the overall functionality of the Decentr ecosystem.
Decentr by design is there to put your data and the power of your data back into your hands, giving our users a say on the platform is a future extension of this. Truly power of the people!
Additional dHub Social Features
As mentioned above, one of our goals for 2022 is to make Decentr more accessible as a decentralised and censorship resistant social media platform and as such, this means adding in some missing features to the dHub/dFeeds that allow users to interact with one another, instead of accessing information via pre set categories. We recently added in the ability for users to follow other users and view their feeds using dFeed, and in 2022 we will add the ability to comment on these posts by users.
These updates, along with the Decentr “Twitter” functionality will bring Decentr’s social media features more in line with traditional offerings, and unlike other social platforms, will incentivise users every step of the way.
Ocean Integration (Data Staking)
The long term vision of Decentr is growing our user base and thus the overall data contained within the platform. With every user we gain who grows their PDV values, the DDV value of the platform also increases, With the already significant increase in both PDV and DDV on the platform, which will only increase by Q2 2022, we will be ready to integrate Ocean Protocols data staking ability and allow users to stake their data and earn rewards for doing so.
Not only will our users be able to create PDV as they Browse to Earn and earn DEC for it, but they’ll also be able to stake this data and earn again afterwards!
As always, stay tuned for further updates, integrations and partnerships. If you require any assistance with running a Validator or delegating or any other support questions please join https://discord.gg/9cSxwKyEjR
Official Links for Decentr
Website: https://decentr.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DecentrNet
Telegram Group: https://t.me/DecentrNet
Telegram ANN: https://t.me/DecentrAnnouncements
Beta Testers: https://t.me/DecentrBetaTesters
Github: https://github.com/Decentr-net
Windows Browser: https://decentr.net/files/DecentrSetupWin.zip
OSX Browser: https://decentr.net/files/MacOS_X64_Decentr_1.1.3.zip
Linux Browser: https://decentr.net/files/Ubuntu_X64_Decentr_1.1.3.zip
Validator and Staking Support: https://discord.gg/9cSxwKyEjR
