Dash 2016 Roadmap

As Dash entered the new year and celebrated our second birthday, the core team decided now was the perfect time for an in-depth strategic review of our roadmap for the year. While we seek to continually review and refine Dash's development plans and strategy to respond to new ideas and opportunities, having a long-term plan in place helps keep the team focused on the right tasks and aligns efforts with our long-term strategies. With the new budgeting system in place, we are also now capable of pursuing opportunities that were never before feasible, so a deeper look at our strategy, goals, and plans for the coming year was definitely warranted.

Our roadmap for 2016 is aligned to the four main strategic areas of work, which were outlined in our Dash Strategy Statement published on December 30th. The fifth area is communication, which is woven into our goals for each of the main strategy areas. As stated above, we have spent a substantial amount of time planning this roadmap, but remind the community that it is subject to change. Feedback is always welcome from the community, and this will surly be refined as ideas and opportunities arise throughout the year. We plan to revisit our roadmap frequently to guide our decision-making and to assess the need to modify our plans.

There are many exciting deliverables planned for the coming year. The core team and other volunteers on the project will work diligently to deliver against this aggressive, yet achievable plan. Dash has a tremendous amount of momentum coming into 2016, and if the community delivers on these plans, Dash will be positioned as the clear leader in innovation in the cryptocurrency markets.

Without further ado, here is an overview of the 2016 roadmap:

Marketing and Communication
1. Participate in TNABC in Miami (21-22 January 2016)
2. Participate frequently in high-impact industry conferences and events
3. Conduct a formal public relations campaign to build awareness and educate the public in existing Dash features and benefits
4. Increase media presence and penetration of mainstream media through both advertising and public relations
5. Launch an improved Dash website (new graphical design and information architecture)
6. Migrate crucial services to official dash.org domain and administrate it as a part of the project (with community support)
7. Enable and host Dash-related webinars from the official website
Software development
1. Complete and open-source design of Evolution
2. Develop prototype of Evolution
3. Make masternode operation available from hardware wallets to increase security of operator tokens
4. Preparations of work for 2MB blocksize increase
5. Develop plan for PrivacyProtect (Darksend v2)
6. Faster PrivacyProtect implementation
7. Privacy support for mobile devices with a new lighter client implementation
8. InstantX security and processing improvements
9. Effective monitoring of InstantX transactions with RPC Commands
10. Mobile wallets capable of receiving IX transactions
11. Implementation of DashDrive, Masternode Quorum Chains, User Accounts, Decentralized API, then the REST API.
12. In 12.2 we should be able to raise the blocksize to 2MB
Business Development
1. Improve fiat access to Dash tokens:
  1. Develop high-quality partners for exchange services, market making, and brokerage to improve market liquidity and access
  2. Alternatively, start our own exchange services if proper partners are not found
2. Build a network of DASH ATM machines
  1. Lobby with current BTM operators to add DASH
  2. Establish a DASH ATM franchise program for Dash supporters to start setting up DASH machines in their locations
3. Establish partnerships to improve hardware wallet integration to facilitate easy and safe storage of Dash tokens
4. Expand merchant acceptance to give users more alternatives to spend, targeting high-value use cases for Dash's differentiating features (e.g., instant, private)
5. Lobby established crypto services to extend their services to include Dash
Project Organization
1. End to end project management of external projects and initiatives
2. Project management support for software development process
3. Development and refinement of the organization and coordination structure as needed to ensure it is efficient, effective, and aligned with industry best-practices as the project grows
4. Introduction of financial planning processes to help the core team and community better manage the funding process and ensure transparency to provide an information on how resources are used
5. Improvements in communication
6. Improvements of the current processes
  1. Release Management
  2. Deployment Management
  3. Support (Incident and Problem management)
7. Identify critical roles, resources and individuals to act as a role model

Some detailed marketing-related activities and goals:

YouTube
- If possible, procure professional translation services to translate videos into Spanish / Portuguese / Chinese when volunteer capacity unavailable
- Rework all guides and videos to reflect Evolution prior to release
- Redesign all video title and end graphics (corporate identity) to reflect the Evolution branding

Chinese
- Launch Dashpay.cn website
- Initiate trading on a HK or China exchange
Spanish
- Assign a dedicated Spanish community member based on the model implemented in China
- 100% of important news and guides translated
- Organize official social media and Spanish Dash chat group
- Initiate trading on a Spanish exchange

Portuguese
- Assign a dedicated Portuguese community member based on the model implemented in China
- 100% of important news and guides translated
- Organize official social media and Portuguese Dash chat group
- Initiate trading on a Portuguese / Brazilian exchange
Indonesia / Arab countries: running a banner campaign now in hopes of developing a local community of early adopters and community enthusiasts

Visual representation of the Dash 2016 Roadmap: