Roadmap Update for Q4 and Beyond

Hey guys, we wanted to give you guys an update to the roadmap for Q4, our current progress, and what’s on the Horizon.

Q3 Recap

Smart Contract Updates

The majority of the team’s efforts have been focused on the Work-in-Progress (WIP) items on the roadmap which include the smart contract codebase updates for shorting, loans, zAsset wrappers, futures trading, and more. These updates require more time to develop and test than front-end related releases as security is the number one focus for Horizon Protocol. Excellent progress made on these updates and we will continue working on them throughout Q4.

Keepers

Chainlink Keepers has been successfully integrated into Horizon Protocol by decentralizing the weekly reward period system. It is also worthwhile to mention that the closeCurrentFeePeriod() function within the FeePool contract is a public function, meaning anyone can call it to close the period. With a keepers now managing it, there should be little-to-no delays in the period closing and we are one step closer to further decentralization.

Horizon DeFi Podcast

We are also happy to have released the Horizon DeFi podcast to help the community and the broader crypto space get insights into Horizon Protocol and the broader DeFi space. Feedback has been positive so far and we are looking forward to expanding the discussion topics and guests of the podcast. We are excited to share our upcoming episodes we have planned for Q4.

Marketing

We have completed the Horizon Genesis Anniversary “Staking Founder: Horizoneers” campaign which has increased new members and stakers to the HZNation. Additionally, we have successfully completed 3 AMAs with the BNB Chain and Chainlink communities. Please give our new members a warm welcome!

Binance Wallet Fix

Outside of the roadmap, we have also addressed an issue, once and for all, on Horizon Genesis regarding the Binance Wallet integration. We thank the support from the community on solving this matter.

Q4 Objectives

Automated Claiming

We will be launching a solution that can help automate user reward claims each week by utilizing Chainlink Keepers and a wallet authorization mechanism in Horizon Protocol. This solution will allow users to automatically claim their rewards each week if they meet the target C-Ratio requirement. This solution will also include an update to Horizon Genesis that allows users to grant claiming access to a Keepers contract that will claim rewards for the users. We are excited for this rollout and will also be releasing a guide with it on Horizon Academy.

New zAssets

Q4 will have at least 5 new zassets that the community voted on and is outlined in the last HIP, which include zMATIC, zAVAX, zMSFT, zNVDA, and zAMZN. While these zAssets were scheduled for Q3, the time syncing the decentralized historical price data for each zAsset using The Graph took longer than expected. These ‘subgraphs’ are nearly complete and should be released early this quarter. We have also begun syncing price data history for other potential zAssets we can list in the future to minimize implementation time. We encourage your ongoing inputs on new zAssets to be released as well!

Horizon Homepage

While previously scheduled for Q3, we will be releasing an update to the Horizon Homepage this quarter instead due to time constraints produced by the Q3 hot fixes and other external matters. Read more about that in our previous roadmap update.

Horizon Blog

We will be releasing our own dedicated Horizon Blog that will make it easy for our users to find all major content and updates related to Horizon Protocol. This blog will also allow for users to subscribe via email to get content updates from Horizon Protocol. The blog will compliment our social media/Medium presence and will also help Horizon Protocol on the SEO front.

Marketing

On the marketing front we are excited to share several activities we have lined up. First of which is our 8-week long “Horizon Explorer” campaign, where we encourage and reward new stakers who enter the Horizon Protocol ecosystem and explore its opportunities! We are also proud to have locked in 3 more upcoming AMAs and 1 Twitter space activity with the BNB Chain community as well as some co-marketing with the Chainlink community. Lastly, Horizon Protocol will be sponsoring a BNB Chain offline event based in Argentina. Stay tuned for future announcements!

Ramping Up for 2023

On the developer front, the smart contract updates are the main focal point for Horizon Protocol at the moment. These updates will set Horizon Protocol up for an exciting and fruitful product/feature release schedule in 2023 and our goal is to utilize Q3-Q4 to get as much done as possible on this front. There are always unexpected issues that arise, so setting hard dates for everything is often not to the project’s benefit, but the team is working hard to achieve these objectives ASAP while ensuring the quality and security that our community is accustomed to.

Furthermore, we are trying to further improve the onboarding experience by updating the Homepage and adding a new Blog site so that new users who enter from any marketing efforts are met with a better experience. On the marketing front, we are currently more focused on organic, cost-effective strategies that help establish brand presence as well as carefully selecting the best paid channels and conducting A/B testing so that, with a strong 2023 release schedule, we can conduct larger campaigns that give great ROIs for the project.

We hope you guys are as excited as us for the future Horizon Protocol and we strongly encourage your feedback and inputs as they are critical to the future of the project. Thanks again for the support and we look forward to seeing you in the chat!

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