Hola from Punta Cana! We’ve been kicking off Infracon today with tons of panels and sessions covering the state of both Pocket Network and decentralized infrastructure in general, beginning with a keynote from several of the core team members at Pocket. In that keynote, we heard about the guiding vision for Pocket Network, as well as some specific updates on what the team has been building. As Pocket Network CEO and co-founder Michael O’Rourke shared, we are collectively dealing with gaps in institutional trust, and blockchain technologies have a huge role to play in filling some of those gaps. Blockchains have a chance to be “the first non-hierarchical collective belief system,” giving all kinds of stakeholders the chance to participate in networks no matter who they are, where they are from, and what they believe in. Decentralized infrastructure at its very core will be an evolution inhuman coordination. As Michael said, “every end user at some point is going to be touching a full node,” and “we have an opportunity to shift the power dynamics of the world.” The role for Pocket Network to play in this changing dynamic is enormous.

Building Towards the Vision

So what is Pocket building now, in order to work in tandem with this vision? And what are the plans for the future?Here are some of the highlights from the rest of the core team on how Pocket is building towards this vision:

• Evolving v0. Even with the huge plans for Pocket Network v1.0, the team is currently improving v0 across several aspects: new storage options, network safety and health, and performance improvements.
• Developing v1. The first prototype of v1.0 has already been built and reviewed, with a focus on Consensus and Utility, and the first iteration regarding the specs is in progress.
• Progress on app staking and a Portal revamp. Enabling app consumers to stake POKT is a primary objective of the team. Along with this work, the team is also revamping the Pocket Portal to cater to both individual and enterprise customers, which will involve improved access management, fiat on-ramping, and more.
• Push for 100 chains. Pocket Network has a goal of onboarding 100 chains by year-end, and is already nearing 50 chains to date.
• Wallet enhancements. In 2022, Pocket is working on a UI refresh and security enhancements for the web wallet. On top of this, the QA process is underway now for a downloadable wallet. Some of the targeted features for the downloadable wallet include multiple account access, account activity summaries, a saved address library, and account monitoring.
• Indexer and Explorer. Both of these tools will be open sourced - the Indexer will contain all Pocket blockchain transactions and their relevant metadata, while the Explorer will be a lite-version of Etherscan and will eventually have functionalities such as a history of DAO changes, DAO treasury transactions, and portal node performance data.

Make sure to check out the full recording of the keynote for tons more details on the above highlights, and stay tuned for more from Punta Cana!