Roadmap and Development Plan
We are commited to delivering best-in-market technologies and solutions.
In progress / under development
Marketing, StealthNodes and TOR update
Marketing Project
Stealth (XST) has consistently maintained strong fundamentals while being unfortunately underexposed. The technological advancements we have made over the past few years have set new benchmarks in the industry, surpassing the majority of other projects and coins. However, we recognize that our project has not received the attention it deserves.
To address this gap, we have been diligently working on a marketing initiative aimed at achieving two primary objectives. First, we aim to increase visibility and interest in Stealth (XST), and second, we intend to attract the recognition it rightfully deserves. Our goal is not only to expand our community but also to boost trading volume on exchanges, grow our user base, and secure additional funding to expand our team’s capabilities and work on exciting projects. We anticipate that this initiative will have several positive impacts on the Stealth project, and as a result, it is currently our top priority.
As we approach the launch date, we will share more details about our plans.
Additional StealthNodes
We are presently in the process of creating artwork for a new batch of StealthNodes. The concept behind StealthNodes is that the number of nodes available is, in theory, infinite to ensure accessibility for potential buyers. However, as outlined in SDBS#32, the StealthNode bonding curve will experience a substantial uptick. This adjustment primarily aims to safeguard early investors and prevent the dilution of the reward pool. Consequently, even though the supply of nodes could theoretically be endless, acquiring nodes beyond a certain threshold would become impractical in practice.
Our current plan is to introduce an additional 40 StealthNodes, although this number may be subject to change as we refine our strategy. The return on investment (ROI) for the forthcoming node, StealthNode #101, will span 8.71 years, accompanied by a notable price increase compared to node #100. Starting with node #108, the bonding curve will enter a new pricing tier known as the premium tier. The design of the bonding curve is to ensure that nodes are consistently available for purchase, although we anticipate that only a few more nodes will be acquired due to the escalating price, lengthy ROI, and diminished annual percentage yield (APY).
TOR update
Update to the latest version of Tor (v0.4.8.1) to take advantage of better network connectivity and security improvements.
In progress / under development
Private transactions utilizing side chains and zk-SNARKs
With private transactions, Stealth will begin the use of side chains that share block validators with the main chain, called StealthCore. Users can send XST from the StealthCore main chain to the private transaction side chain, called StealthPrivate. These transactions are ratified by the complete set of Stealth validators on both chains. Coins transferred to the StealthPrivate side chain are effectively removed from StealthCore (and vice versa).
Users can convert XST to private coins (XSS StealthSend) on StealthPrivate and transfer them with cryptographic privacy, which uses zk-SNARKs. Users can convert private coins back to XST on StealthPrivate, and send XST to StealthCore for use with exchanges and other services.
Notably, StealthCore can be hosted independently of StealthPrivate or any other Stealth side chain. This side chain based system keeps all private transactions off StealthCore, greatly simplifying compliance where the hosting of private transactions could be problematic, as with centralized exchanges.
Additionally the need to host just StealthCore lowers the hosting burden significantly. Exchanges and other third parties, like custodial payment processors, have no practical need to host any information outside of that which is relevant only to the liquid XST money supply on StealthCore.
zk-SNARK transactions are small compared to other privacy schemes like Monero. This is important because smaller transactions means that the blockchain will scale more efficiently.
zk-SNARKs can be validated quickly, allowing validator nodes to process many more transactions, also important for scaling.
Stealth zk-Snarks will be similar to Zerocash, offering the most potent privacy solution possible in that it hides everything about a transaction including the sender, receiver, and the amount.
Upcoming
4-way hybrid ledger
Stealth’s Registry Ledger will be extended to a “General Purpose Ledger” to enable Smart Contracts. Instead of a 2-way hybrid/fused ledger (currently), XST will get a 4-way hybrid ledger which allows for a ton of extensibility.
1. UTXO Bitcoin Ledger (aka the blockchain)
2. Registry Ledger (for block rewards)
3. Account Ledger (based on registry ledger technology already existing)
4. Smart Contracts
2,3 and 4 would be stateful.
Can Smart Contracts be feeless?
Smart contracts can have a feeless design based on PoW (Proof-of-Work).
But we are still researching that.
It is much more straightforward to have feeless token transfers but fee
smart contract execution, so a hybrid ledger design for smart contracts is likely.
2. Registry Ledger (for block rewards)
3. Account Ledger (based on registry ledger technology already existing)
4. Smart Contracts
But we are still researching that.
smart contract execution, so a hybrid ledger design for smart contracts is likely.
Upcoming
User defined tokens and microtransactions
User Defined Tokens (UDT)
User can deploy their own (fungible) tokens on Stealth, similar to what ERC20 is on Ethereum. They wouldn’t be ERC20 tho. It is goin to be a standard that is defined by the Stealth protocol, a hard coded standard. In other words, using accounts for user defined tokens instead of UTXOs.
ERC20 is a smart contract. It has a lot of flexibility, but that flexibility leaves room for exploits and rugs, etc. Few need that level of flexibility. It doesn’t need to be a smart contract. Most people just want to send and receive tokens and not have all the overhead of smart contracts.
It’s also much easier on the blockchain. So having our own token standard such as XRC20 makes a lot of sense.
Additionally user will be able to deploy non-fungible tokens, NFTs, such standard could be called XRC21 for example.
Microtransactions
Say you have a service that sells 1 min of music streaming and everyone pays 1 min
at a time and you have 10,000 customers, each paying $0.001 every minute with XST.
That requires something other than UTXO which would get overwhelmed.
For this use case, a user sets up a microtransaction account, which saves a lot of pain
on the blockchain. For example, a user can spend one million payments of $0.001 in
one transaction of about 250 bytes, feelessly. Such a transaction can be created and
confirmed in about 5 seconds.
at a time and you have 10,000 customers, each paying $0.001 every minute with XST.
That requires something other than UTXO which would get overwhelmed.
on the blockchain. For example, a user can spend one million payments of $0.001 in
one transaction of about 250 bytes, feelessly. Such a transaction can be created and
confirmed in about 5 seconds.
Stealth’s Management Team
