Kushti has brought me on to help with Bizdev work. I can’t speak to any specifics as any talks are covered by NDA, but I can tell you the general game plan. I think transparency here is a good thing.
In the shorter term, my goal is to onboard a payment gateway, a larger, more accessible/trusted exchange, and continue to add to Ergo’s Dex portfolio.
Payment gateways are a great option to get ERG circulating. Any small business owners in the community that receive payments online could add a crypto payment gateway and accept ERG for their goods or services.
I can confirm talks with a few larger exchanges without any specifics. One important thing to keep in mind with larger exchanges is they will want to see activity and liquidity. Trading metrics are a part of how exchanges evaluate projects. So, whatever comes, please consider providing liquidity, trading, or using larger exchanges if you are purchasing. Many things appear simple, quick, and easy. However, they are a little more complex in reality. Nonetheless, it is a goal. It will get done. Please have patience with this.
Crypto, in general, is seeing a phase of adoption that is unprecedented. I believe the total market of the crypto space compared to the GPD of countries puts the crypto market in the top 20. As such, I do believe we see some regulation in the next year or two.
This is an extrinsic risk that is important to have contingency plans for. The best way to do that is to have the core team continue to focus on our native dex. On the biz dev side, explore potential dexes to list on, and get a little more active with the BPSAA. Things are in motion here as well.
I wish I could provide a roadmap, but there are many market variables to take into account as things move forward, well as non-disclosure agreements.
Once these three goals are met, I will look into wallet partners and expanding our mining pools/distributing the hash rate. Ergo has already signed a contract for ledger support. I am in contact with the development team working on ledger and can provide updates as they hit development milestones.
There is also a mobile wallet in development. Ongoing development can be followed in discord or the weekly dev update.
On a side note, Kushti is putting together Ergo’s first hackathon. If we can get some community support in promotion, advertising, and even participation by community members, that would be awesome.