Future Vision

Imagine a future where there is a marketplace for dApps within the explorer, all built using Edge Services; where projects can launch tokens on top of $XE; where creators can mint NFTs; where DAOs can deploy governance functions with the click of a button; and where all of this activity ladders back to $XE, driving token value and massive deflation of supply.

As the project moves towards becoming a full DAO and governance launches, our attention is turning to the future of the project.

We launched Edge with a crowdsale in 2018, setting a five year plan for the creation of decentralised web services as a viable alternative to AWS, Google and Azure. That five year period comes to close at the end of this month, and does so with a credible, solid and in-production decentralised cloud, backed by its own chain.

Edge CDN is a highly distributed content delivery service with real time media manipulation built in. Edge Servers are on-demand linux virtual machines that are capable of running basically anything. Edge DNS accelerates domain mapping with points of presence all over the world. And the XE Blockchain brings on chain staking, payments and rewards to edge computing.

Looking to the next five years, we have begun roadmapping the ecosystem vision. This means staying the course with the core network technology (releasing Edge Storage, along with a suite of other products), and hitting the ground running with a clear focus on expansion of use in 2023.

This means building a credible dedicated sales team. To date this has been a key role of the founders, heavily weighted to relationship building and our own networks. However for network use to scale, this needs to be broadened out significantly.

We’re exploring ways of doing this in a way that enables us to fund the operation whilst maintaining the independence and status of the not for profit organisation that is controlled by the DAO. For example, a sales organisation could be set up and funded as a separate legal entity, retaining referral fees for everything that it brings to the network.

We also need to enhance community engagement and find ways to activate the referral programme. There are over 100k people across the project’s primary channels. With the right incentives in place, this should be a key channel for growth.

It also means driving our messaging through targeted marketing. In reality this needs to go hand in glove with the broader sales approach. This means understanding and targeting verticals, focusing on individual markets, and A/B testing our messaging to find the right messaging to drive higher conversion. We need landing pages and offers on site, working alongside our ongoing content creation and social outreach efforts.

We also believe that it means building an ecosystem around the core platform, supported by simple tools to enable creators to rapidly launch their vision on Edge. The more projects that make use of Edge, the more awareness there will be across the industry. And with usage comes trust, a key component when it comes to the selection of a cloud provider. There are great examples of this already, and a bunch more already in the works. But there is a lot of room for growth.

Edge as an ecosystem represents an evolution of the XE Blockchain, bringing new functions to the fore – simple function calls that trigger commonly required functionality. We’re not talking about a programmable layer like Ethereum, rather functionality that hits 99% of the requirements for projects without introducing the complexity of smart contracts. Functionality that enables on chain activity within applications with ease.

We believe that this approach, when matched with on-demand cloud services, brings a very compelling proposition to market. When we deliver on this vision, Edge will be providing a platform that is akin to AWS and Ethereum combined, owned and operated by and for the benefit of us all.

And this brings us neatly to project governance. We’ve been working on Open Governance for over a year, planning the supporting structures and processes to enable the project to operate effectively as a DAO without sacrificing the ability to engage with more traditional businesses. The structure of the project is now clear, and represents the cutting edge of this sort of organisational structure.

The first step is open governance, which launched community governance at the end of last year, along with a first proposal to ratify the governance system itself. This achieved quorum, which was a fantastic step. New proposals will be hitting the system in the coming weeks, and we find our rhythm with the governance structure, we expect this to become central to the operation of the project.

You can read more about open governance here: https://edge.network/en/updates/announcements/open-governance

2022 was a big year for Edge, with a huge number of releases and milestones hit. The first stage of Open Governance launched and the future direction of the project moved into view. We’ll be elaborating on the plans for the future of the project and publishing updates to the project’s roadmaps in the coming weeks.

Thank you for being part of the journey. And a very Happy New Year!