Mina Protocol Product Priorities & Mina Foundation Mission

It has been more than 6 months since Mina has launched on mainnet and we are thrilled to have hit many milestones so far, including a community sale, the Mina Foundation organizational/team restructuring, as well as various partnership updates. Over the last few months, we have been working to support Mina Protocol’s vision of a vibrant, decentralized network and open programmable currency. 

As part of this, we are excited to share Mina’s near-term product priorities. This current list of Mina product priorities were collaboratively identified with Mina ecosystem partner o1Labs with feedback from the Mina community. As progress is made on each of the initiatives and new priorities emerge, we will share updates to reflect the latest view of the product priorities ahead of us. 

Product Priorities

The product priorities for Mina in the immediate future are 1) zkApps and 2) core protocol and infrastructure development.

Laser Focus on zkApps
Where we landed is that the product focus for the near term is to further build out zkApps, which will enable a variety of use cases and developers to start building on Mina. This is what Mina ecosystem partner o1Labs is primarily working on. Check out this blog for more details on what zkApps are and how they can solve blockchain’s scalability and privacy issues. The goal is to launch a more accessible version of zkApps on Mainnet and release a zkApps Software Development Kit (SDK) around Q1 2022. In order to get there, there are plans for zkApps workshops, a zkApps Testnet as well as a zkApps Hackathon later this year. Sign up if you are interested in being notified about the zkApps Hackathon.

Developing WebzkApps, which will allow real world data to be connected to blockchain in the most trustless possible way using HTTPS, is planned for mid-2022. We are also targeting partnerships to further demonstrate the usability of zkApps to the wider world, in addition to the already-existing use case with Teller Finance.

Core Protocol & Infrastructure Development
The next biggest product priority for Mina is on core protocol and infrastructure developments. This includes implementing testing infrastructure to facilitate the work of engineers working on Mina’s core protocol, better integration tests to speed up product development, enabling multi-environment setup to support more networks running in parallel for Mina, increasing the number of accounts that the Mina network can handle to open up Mina to more participants, and improving node stability. These updates are important in making Mina web and mobile nodes available.

Mina Foundation Vision & Mission
Over the last few months, we have also been working to zero in on Mina Foundation’s role in the Mina ecosystem. To inform this work, we shared a survey with the Mina community where we asked participants about their background, why they were involved with Mina, what their expectations of the Mina Foundation are, and more. Some interesting findings from the survey results include:

• Across all participant groups, Mina community members care about transparency, productivity, and vision and see Mina Foundation’s role as central to these 3 characteristics.

• The majority of the community shared that they were part of Mina for several key reasons, including that they are here to learn more about Mina’s technology and that they are invested in Mina’s long-term future.

• An active segment of Mina’s community is very interested in growing a safe and inclusive community as well as guiding and orienting new members.

• A large subset of survey respondents, 37%, self-identified as currently engaging in 2 or 3 ways, while 20% self-identified as engaging in more than 4 ways.

Based on the insights from the survey, as well as in-depth interviews with different ecosystem participants, we are happy to share that the role of the Mina Foundation is to serve and empower the expanding ecosystem of Mina participants as they contribute to a thriving shared future. Tangibly, these are the 4 pillars that the Mina ecosystem can count on the Mina Foundation for: 

1. Allocating resources strategically and equitably
2. Ensuring network health and security
3. Supporting participants on their path, including creating an environment for members to collaborate 
4. Championing Mina in the wider world

Together with our partners and community, we are building a future powered by participants. We appreciate each of you for working on this together with us and look forward to more exciting things to come. Sign up for the Mina newsletter so we can share with you Mina’s latest updates.