Mina Ecosystem Roadmap – Q2 2022

In a commitment towards continued decentralization of Mina Protocol, this update, previously known as Product Priorities, is now renamed to the Mina Ecosystem Roadmap. These are periodic updates intended to share what is being worked on by various Mina ecosystem teams, and will be updated every quarter.

Below is the most recent view of the Ecosystem Roadmap, as of the date of publication of this blog. 

Mina Ecosystem Roadmap

Update on Ecosystem Roadmap Projects

zkApps Builders Program

In April, the first 12-week zkApps Builders Program was concluded, with a cohort of 7 individuals and teams completing this inaugural program! Participants worked on a project of their choosing and wrote a rollup, DEX, attestations, and more. The program received really positive feedback and was useful in both supporting developers as they built their zkApp and receiving feedback to improve o1js (formerly SnarkyJS). Due to the success of this first program, it will be continued and plans are underway for a Summer 2022 zkApps Builders cohort! You can apply now for the next zkApps Builders Program here, and keep an eye out for a wrap-up blog post on the first cohort coming soon!

Document Mina’s crypto libraries and curve points

Mina ecosystem partner o1Labs is proud to share with the community, Mina Book, a comprehensive overview of the cryptographic back end or “proof system” that underlies Mina. In its current incarnation, Mina Book covers the core cryptographic primitives underlying the protocol such as the Poseidon hash function, polynomial commitment scheme, Pasta elliptic curves, and Kimchi, the new SNARK which is planned for a future upgrade. Mina Book will remain a living document and will be updated as needed going forward. Like everything being worked on by the Mina ecosystem, Mina Book is open source and contributions from the community are welcome.

zkApps Testing

As a reminder, the process for zkApps testing includes:

Initial Testing (started Q4 2021) → Berkeley QANet (launched Q1 2022) → Berkeley Incentivized Testnet (targeting Q2 2022)

In February, the Berkeley QA Network was launched! This is the first network which supports new zkApps functionality at the protocol level and is the first milestone in testing zkApp transactions and functionality. A group of community members called the QA Task Force has been participating in this phase of testing by running their own nodes, sending test transactions, and helping to identify bugs and issues. Thanks to community testing, issues have been addressed, new features deployed, and work is being done to iterate towards the Berkeley Incentivized Testnet. In the coming days, the hope is to have QA Task Force deploy zkApps using o1js (formerly SnarkyJS) on the Berkeley QANet. The plan is to launch the Berkeley Incentivized Testnet to the wider public this summer, with technical as well as community challenges.

zkApps Software Development Kit (SDK)

Recently, the first zkApp transaction generated by o1js (formerly SnarkyJS) was successfully sent to Berkeley QANet! 🎉 This was a huge milestone for o1js (formerly SnarkyJS). Final touches are being made for the ability to deploy a zkApp to Berkeley QANet using the Mina zkApp CLI and this is planned to be merged in the coming days. Simultaneously, the o1Labs team is coordinating with Auro Wallet to support their efforts to send user transactions generated by zkApps. Docs updates for these aspects will be published soon. There are also events planned for later this summer to mark the official launch of the zkApps SDK and onboard more developers, stay tuned!

New Uptime Tracking System

As part of the planned improvements to the Mina Foundation Delegation Program, a new uptime tracking system is being developed. This work is in progress and the latest version of the tracker is being tested with block producers within the Mina community.

zkBridge (Formerly ‘Bridge to Ethereum: One Way Mina -> Ethereum’)

Previously described as a one-way Mina → Ethereum bridge, the scope of this project has increased to a product that will be called zkBridge. zkBridge will make Mina accessible not only from Ethereum, but from other chains and devices. So if you are already building on Avalanche, for example, Mina’s zkBridge will enable Avalanche dapps to leverage Mina’s properties. Due to the expansion of the capabilities, the estimated completion date for zkBridge is now Q3 2022. 

However, notable progress has been made on the Mina – Ethereum bridge portion of the project. You can learn more from the latest monthly Ecosystem Update, but a key highlight is the completion of the Mina-Ethereum Bridge demo, which allows a user with an Ethereum Ropsten account to walk through all the critical steps of the bridge core: retrieve Mina’s state proof, pre-process it right in browser, submit it to the target protocol and verify it in there.

Multi-Environment Setup

This project involves upgrading the protocol infrastructure to accommodate more networks running in parallel, including those started by community members. Due to the need to focus on other priorities in Q3 such as non-consensus nodes and non-native token support, this project’s estimated completion date is now Q4 2022. 

Improve Node Stability

Many performance improvements have been shipped over the last quarter; feedback from node operators and community members has been positive and they have noticed a marked increase in stability and performance under load. Work is continuing on more improvements which will be included in additional 1.3.x releases in the near future. The process of integrating Bitswap is ongoing and this will be tested as a part of the upcoming Berkeley Incentivized Testnet.

Other items on the product priorities list beyond Q2 are being worked on and the estimated completion dates have not changed. 

Future Updates

Every month, participants of the Mina ecosystem are contributing to the Ecosystem Update blogs – here they are for February, March, and April. These monthly updates are intended to offer a granular view on the progress made on product priorities items as well as individual projects and resources by community members. 

To continue to keep the Mina community informed, the Ecosystem Roadmap will continue to be updated every quarter, to reflect completion and any changes in timeline.