The Telos flagship governance engine, Telos Decide, is the leading chain-level governance engine for dapps and DAOs to easily implement robust governance. Telos Decide will continue to be a major focus for Telos through ongoing development and new feature innovations, but the main focus will be to expand its adoption through better tools and interfaces. New projects on the technical roadmap (below) expected to foster growth include: Telos Wallet easy-to-use web wallet, Decide Voter mobile voting app, dStor decentralized storage to expand the functionality of Decide governance, and smart contract bridges allowing Telos Decide to be used as a deterministic voting platform for other blockchains connected to Telos via these bridges.

Benefits: Telos Decide has already proven its power to attract new dapps and DAOs to Telos. In 2021, new tools will turn this into a powerful voting platform for all kinds of organizations, driving increased adoption and value to the Telos blockchain.

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dStor is a decentralized cloud storage platform like Filecoin or Siacoin in some respects and like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud in others. Apps and users can store the files they need on dStor for fast reliable access from anywhere in the world. Storage node operators can earn TLOS as “miners” for dStor by providing excess storage and bandwidth to the system that incentivizes high performing nodes with higher pay. Users can pay in fiat currencies with credit cards so they don’t have the friction point and fluctuating prices of cloud storage systems that require customers to use tokens—making the system much more accessible to businesses outside the crypto world.

Benefits: dStor will bill its customers in fiat funds via credit cards. (TLOS payment will also be available but likely to be less used.) Storage node operators will be paid weekly using TLOS tokens sent directly to their Telos accounts. (They will have the option to route these through TSwaps pools to convert to other Telos-based tokens like pETH, pBTC or TLOSD if they choose.) Telos will benefit from the ever-growing financial activity as users are regularly paying in fiat currency to dStor which it then converts into TLOS to pay its storage node operators. Dapps will also benefit from the ability to have fast, reliable, lower cost file storage for their needs. Already several dapps are developing new Telos-based platforms built directly on the synergies of Telos and dStor.

When: dStor will be released in early Q1 2021 following over a year of development by GoodBlock and other Telos Core Developers.

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Telos EVM is an Ethereum virtual machine that runs Solidity contracts on Telos just like Ethereum, but faster, with higher capacity and at around 1% of the cost of Ethereum gas fees. Developers deploy their Solidity smart contracts to Telos EVM without needing to modify the code. For certain types of Ethereum dapps that cannot support the huge gas fees that DeFi projects are creating on Ethereum, Telos EVM will be a godsend allowing them to continue to operate at a tiny fraction of the expense. Supporting these Ethereum developers is one reason why Telos has been working with pTokens to deploy an Ethereum-Telos bridge with swap pools on each side. At launch, Telos EVM will have a block explorer, Metamask integration, and dedicated history nodes to ensure reliability.

Benefits: Telos EVM will attract numerous dapps that can no longer afford the increasing gas fees of Ethereum. The native token used on EVM will be a direct 1:1 peg for TLOS, extending the usage. Telos EVM will have fees. While these are far lower than Ethereum gas fees (perhaps 1%) they will still create more need and usage for the TLOS tokens. As Telos gains more income for these additional, non-core services, it is hoped that the chain better supports its infrastructure and can use these fees to fund all network functions to remain a no-inflation chain after the current reserves are exhausted.

When: Telos EVM is well underway and will be released in Q1 2021.

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Telos Private will enable completely private “zero knowledge proofs” transactions for Telos users. Telos Private will employ a separate EOSIO sidechain with modified code to allow ZK transactions and bridges to and from Telos. The Telos chain, itself, will remain fully open, but users will be able to send any type of Telos-based tokens across bridges from Telos to the Telos Private sidechain, and then send private transactions back to Telos accounts. Since Telos will be linked to other blockchains like Ethereum, this allows users to add an easy to use private transactions to any chain connected to Telos. The sidechain will be decentralized and run by the Telos block producers (minus those who may have legal concerns about such activity based on their local laws) and selected based on Telos users’ voting. The chain will be funded by small transaction fees, paid in TLOS for private transactions. There are many important reasons to give users the ability to keep transactions private yet verifiable and Telos is going to support those users and developers who need this.

Benefits: Privacy is an extremely important feature for many crypto users. This structure allows Telos, itself, to remain transparent while letting private transactions occur on the sidechain. There are currently no high capacity blockchains that include a ZK-based privacy feature. Other chains will increasingly move through the available bridges Telos and back to gain anonymity for transactions and accounts. There will be fees in TLOS for using the privacy chain which further generates network income.

When: Q3 2021

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Telos ID is an identity solution that combines two large needs for identity: first, it will help determine and rate the uniqueness of an individual’s accounts identity, second, it will allow a user to have others verify necessary information about them without leaking any additional information that the user does not specify. Ensuring an uniqueness of identity—meaning each real individual can reliably only have one—is crucial for both voting and UBI solutions. This supports the Telos vision for revolutionizing blockchain governance and providing a platform for universal basic income solutions. Allowing a user to provide specific information to an employer, landlord, or anyone, and have only that information verified, with no additional data leakage is an important privacy solution. Telos ID will be the first blockchain identity solution to address both of these needs.

Benefits: There are many projects interested in UBI, but they can’t easily proceed without ways to protect against Sybil attacks. All types of businesses need customer information, but blockchain users shouldn’t have to fully dox themselves just to buy things or use services. The ability of Telos ID to address these needs will be a major driver of dapps to Telos. Currently, each business needs to perform its own KYC, so chain-level KYC seems unhelpful. However, by making it easy to verify personal information, Telos ID makes it easier for these businesses to perform the verifications they require to satisfy KYC/AML regulations.

When: Q3 2021

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Telos Location allows proof-of-location using the Telos blockchain, while paying users to do “location mining” for the system. Individual mobile device users, wifi hotspots and others can earn TLOS rewards for providing a web of location data that helps create cryptographically provable location data. This will be of incredible value not just to delivery companies, but anyone who needs to verify that they were in a specific place at a specific time. Maintenance crews, for example, can provide service on system and prove that they were there as claimed. This technology will be revolutionary for all types of businesses.

Benefits: Telos Location will be a service unlike anything offered by a blockchain today. By integrating this at the platform level, Telos will unlock untold value for a wide variety of businesses. If delivered on time, this service will stand alone in the industry. It will be powered by Telos, meaning users and “location miners” will need to have Telos accounts and the fees and rewards will be in TLOS. Fees for system use, while small, will further contribute to the economic stability of Telos and its aims to remain a zero-inflation chain even after reserves have been used.

When: Q4 2021

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The Telos web wallet at app.telos.net already provides a convenient way to create accounts and vote on Telos issues. The coming year will see it developed into a full, attractive, easy-to-use wallet application that can do anything Telos users may want with extreme ease. Telos Wallet also has social media features such as Telos Profile, Sentiment tokens, badges, and NFT creation, display and trading built in.

Benefits: Web wallets are extremely useful for many users. Telos will enable broader adoption of all its systems by creating a Telos-based wallet that includes Telos Decide voting and governance features, social media elements like Telos Profile and Sentiment Tokens, NFTs, badges, friends lists, and more. Beautiful, easy-to-use, and powerful web wallets drive adoption.

When: Next update Q1 2021 with quarterly updates thereafter

T-Bonds are a fairly simple idea: what if there could be an NFT that operated like one of the biggest financial markets in the world: sovereign debt such as US Treasury bonds a.k.a. “T-Bills”. T-Bonds can lock up fungible tokens into a tradeable NFT, which allows projects to release token reserves without crashing existing liquid markets, but also without the negatives of selling entirely illiquid tokens. While the fungible tokens locked within the T-Bonds are not liquid to sell on standard exchanges, the T-Bond NFTs can be sold on secondary markets, meaning projects don’t need to pay the high premiums they would otherwise need to on locked tokens. However, T-Bonds also create a derivative market because, like T-Bills, the future value of T-Bonds with locked tokens that have staking rewards changes relative to the staking rewards yield. So in addition to being a great way to buy tokens at a discount, T-Bonds could significantly increase their value if the staking rewards they offset are reduced. This creates the possibility of sophisticated derivative markets of this type for the first time ever in crypto or DeFi. We expect many projects to use T-Bonds as a fundraising or liquidity expanding mechanism.

Benefits: T-Bond NFTs could become an important new form of fundraising that drives projects to Telos to use these features. Some of these will deploy on Telos, others will just use the CCI solutions Telos provides. Either way, the increase usage will greatly enhance Telos.

When: Initial T-Bonds with TLOS tokens 18th January 2021. T-Bonds for other tokens, including tutorials and guides, should be available in January 2021 and there is already a long list of interested projects.

Sign With Telos is a simple sign-in app for desktop or mobile that makes signing in to Telos apps as easy as Google or Facebook. This technology is an extension of the Keycat sign-in utility that has not seen development in many months. The Telos Core Developers expanded and improved it to provide a great user experience.

Benefits: Sign With Telos makes signing in or signing transactions extremely easy and automated for users on desktop or mobile. This supports our mission to make using a Telos dapp as easy as using any non-blockchain dapp.

When: Q1 2021

Telos Decide is the world’s most advanced governance engine, but so far it has not had a great interface and no mobile interface. Decide Voter is a mobile app for Android and iOS from GoodBlock. It will be available as free and premium versions in app stores making Telos Decide as accessible as it is powerful.

Benefits: Today’s users want to use native mobile apps more than any other form of program interface. Decide Voter will be an attractive, fast, easy-to-use app specifically for voting on Telos Decide-based polls and ballots. This easy interface will greatly enhance the usability and attractiveness of Telos Decide as the blockchain governance engine for the world.

When: Q1 2021 with ongoing improvements thereafter

The Telos mission is to improve the lives of people around the world through community-governed, high-capacity blockchains. One of the best ways to fulfill this mission is to extend the utility of Telos features to other blockchains. The first step of this process has already begun in placing pegged tokens like pBTC from pTokens on Telos where it can trade and flow rapidly as little as 1 satoshi at a time with no fees. This has already begun and more tokens including pETH and other Ethereum tokens will be on Telos very soon. But the next step in this innovation is to allow smart contract actions on one chain, like Telos or Ethereum, to trigger smart contract actions on another chain. This will be an important milestone in cross-chain interaction (CCI), or inter-blockchain communication (IBC).

Benefits: Today’s token bridges fill an important economic role for blockchains, and Telos is working to extend these to major chains. However, to date, these do not allow smart contract actions to cross from one chain to another. This will vastly empower CCI and utility. For example, other chains could use the Telos Decide governance engine to manage their voting functions in a fast, user-friendly, virtually cost-less manner, and then only when an outcome has been fairly and transparently determined, trigger the smart contract action that would be the outcome of that ballot measure. This extends any and all Telos special functions to other chains and deepens the mutually beneficial ties between blockchain communities.

When: Q2 2021