Ergo Development Roadmap & History
Ergo is a blockchain platform designed to provide a secure, efficient, and user-friendly environment for the development of decentralized applications and financial tools. This roadmap outlines the key milestones and objectives for the development and growth of the Ergo ecosystem.
Resources
Vision & Key Features
Ergo is a cutting-edge smart contract platform that provides secure, accessible, and decentralized financial tools to empower ordinary people. Utilizing a sophisticated scripting language and advanced cryptographic features, Ergo builds on fundamental blockchain principles to transform the concept of Contractual Money.
Ergo aims to establish itself as a mineable digital asset akin to "Digital Gold 2.0," supporting trustless derivatives and dynamic contracts. The development of Ergo's DeFi ecosystem and the integration of sidechains will broaden the decentralized monetary base and derivative money supply, enhancing financial inclusivity and accessibility worldwide.
Ergo's commitment to decentralization, fairness, and accessibility is evident in its adoption of the Autolykos Proof-of-Work protocol, which facilitates a user-friendly environment where lightweight clients can interact directly with the blockchain, making Ergo a practical and programmable currency ready for use.
For more information please see the Why Ergo? section.
General Overarching Ergo Design and Implementation Roadmap
Phase 1: Foundations ✓
- • Start with the basic design of Ergo as digital gold (commodity money)
- • Introduce programmability features including crypto contracts, stealth addresses, arbitrarily complex signatures, and mixing schemes
- • Position Ergo as a basis for unstoppable, grassroots economies
Phase 2: Initial Experiments ✓
- • Conduct initial experiments to test functionality and user engagement
- • Evaluate the outcomes considering the initial motivations
Phase 3: Defining Adoption
- • Clarify the term "adoption" as it is often ambiguous in industry discussions
- • Develop metrics or KPIs to measure adoption success
Phase 4: Scaling and Optimization
- • Peer-to-peer (P2P) level optimizations and rework ✓
- • Consider pre-block commitments to transaction ordering (sub-blocks)
- • Aim to increase transactions per second (TPS) while maintaining security
Constraints: Limitations include requirements for a flat P2P network running on commodity hardware. No use of centralized data centers for scalability.
Phase 5: Offloading Solutions
- • Propose options for offloading transactions to Layer 2 or sidechains
- • Introduce "Know Your Assumptions" KYA as a way to explain security in offloading options ✓
Phase 6: Convergence
- • Multiple developments in scaling, optimization, and offloading are expected to converge
- • Culminating in a comprehensive solution for widespread adoption
Summarised from Kushti, 7 Aug, 2023
Scaling Ergo
Creating a scalable blockchain infrastructure is a complex task. Ergo, fortified by a decade of research, rigorous testing, and ongoing development, has risen to the challenge. This guide will walk you through Ergo's sophisticated scalability features.
Blockchain scalability is primarily influenced by three factors:
- • Cryptoeconomic incentive model: Ensures miners receive suitable rewards for scaling costs
- • Consensus model: Determines feasibility of certain scalability solutions
- • Accounting model: Management of transactions and operations within the blockchain
Ergo's innovative approach to scalability sets it apart from other blockchain technologies. Unlike Ethereum's Account model, Ergo's eUTXO employs a unique strategy: transactions are created off-chain, and validation checks are conducted on-chain.
Who develops Ergo?
Ergo is developed by a combination of the Ergo Foundation, community developers and the recently launched DevDAO.
Ergo Timeline
2019: Genesis Year
Milestones:
- • July 1: Ergo mainnet launched during the "crypto winter"
- • Autumn: Ergo Foundation established
Development:
- • First tools and libraries emerged
- • Inaugural crowdfunding using UTXOs and smart contracts
- • Zero-join paper published
- • Multi-stage contracts paper by Amitabh released
- • First smart contract formally verified
2020: Foundation Building
Milestones:
- • January 7: Introduction of the Ergo Foundation as a community-driven entity
Launches:
- • Ergo Mixer (initially a raw application, later improved by Anon2020)
- • Late August: Oracle pools
- • Zero-knowledge treasury by anon_real
- • Auction House
Partnerships: Collaboration with Emurgo for joint research (Oracle Pools, SigmaUSD, headless dApp framework)
Listings: CoinEx, Gate.io
Community: Roadmap released and Discord community initiated
2021: Expansion and Recognition
Launches:
- • Q1: SigmaUSD launched
Ecosystem Growth:
- • Spectrum DEX and DeFi ecosystem development began
- • Autolykos v2 hard fork: opened Ergo to mining pools, improved liquidity
Partnerships and Listings:
- • Collaboration with Jinse, Chinese community expanded to 10,000+ members
- • Listed on KuCoin and Changelly
Community Milestones:
- • UTXO Alliance formed
- • Inaugural Ergo Summit and two hackathons
Team Expansion:
- • Joseph Armeanio and Mark Glasgow join Ergo Foundation
- • November 1: Daniel Friedman (IOHK) appointed Advisor to Ergo Foundation Board
2022: Technical Advancements
Protocol Upgrades:
- • EIP-27 (emission soft-fork) was implemented
- • EIP-37 (difficulty retargeting hard fork) was implemented
Exchange Listings: Indodax, Huobi, Bittrue
Ecosystem Expansion:
- • Parallel asset was launched on Flux
- • The Sigmanauts Program was launched
Community Engagement:
- • Two summits and three hackathons were held, with a total of 45 entries
- • ergoplatform.org and sigmaverse.io were redesigned and relaunched
Technical Milestone: Node V5 with JITC (Just-In-Time Compilation) was released
2023: Ecosystem Flourishing
Milestones:
- • Significant donations to EF Treasury from ecosystem projects
- • Storage rent activation
- • Sigmanauts program expansion and improvements
Integrations: Bitpanda listing, nonkyc.io, Koinly, StealthEx
Core Developments:
- • Sigma.js
- • UTXO Set Snapshots
- • Bootstrapping with NiPoPoWs
- • Sub-block confirmation protocol work
Community Events: Ergo Summit 2023, ErgoVersary 2023, ErgoHack VI and VII
2024: Future Horizons (In Progress)
Milestones:
- • ErgoHack VIII - Ergo as a Smart Layer ✓
- • DAO for Ergo core ✓
- • Ergo achieved #1 in TVL% of market cap for a PoW chain ✓
- • Ergo listed on MEXC exchange ✓
Technical Improvements:
- • Successful migration from LevelDB to RocksDB ✓
- • Node 6.0.0-alpha1 release ✓
- • Sigma protocol updates ✓
- • Infrastructure improvements ✓
Ongoing Challenges:
- • Scalability Improvements (Layer 1 and Layer 2)
- • Usability Enhancements
- • Security Strengthening
- • Ecosystem Development
DeFi Ecosystem
Every new addition to our growing DeFi ecosystem contributes to the expansion of trustless collateral, the decentralized monetary base, and the supply of derivative assets.