As we’ve closed Q3, the Concordium team is excited to share recent developments and upcoming priorities. This quarter marked a turning point for Concordium as we welcomed our new CEO, Boris Bohrer-Bilowitzki. Concordium is now undergoing a strategic realignment, focusing on initiatives that will shape the next generation of our protocol. With this shift, some planned developments have been adjusted to better support Concordium’s foundational growth, aligned with community requests and Governance Committee guidance.

Get the overview of Concordium’s product roadmap development on concordium.com/roadmap, or keep reading to get all the details.

Q3 2024 Recap: Key Milestones and Completed Work

Protocol 7 Release

A major highlight this quarter was the implementation of Protocol 7, supported by the Concordium Node version 7.0.5 on mainnet, a significant upgrade with enhancements to ensure the Concordium network remains robust and future-ready. Protocol 7 introduced concurrent cool-down for stakers and more efficient smart contract execution, and marked the final retirement of the shielding feature. This release brings improved efficiency and paves the way for upcoming developments that rely on an optimized protocol foundation.

Enhancing the Concordium Ecosystem

In Q3, we introduced several key updates to enhance the usability and functionality of Concordium’s ecosystem. The release of CryptoX Wallet v2.0 brought an integrated news feed and push notifications, delivering updates on network activity directly to users’ wallets to boost engagement. Additionally, we responded to community feedback by implementing concurrent unstaking, allowing users to unstake in parallel — a significant improvement in flexibility and transaction speed for stakers. To further support institutional adoption, we upgraded CompanyID with a smoother onboarding process for companies and reinforcing Concordium’s commitment to secure, reliable identity solutions. Lastly, to streamline node setup, we published ready-to-use node images on AWS, simplifying deployment for users and developers. Although these images are not yet available on GCP, due to prohibitively high cost requirements from the cloud provider, we are evaluating options for broader accessibility.

Ongoing Initiatives

Several initiatives saw substantial progress in Q3 and will continue to develop in Q4. Development is underway on the scalable airdrop framework, an open-source, anti-fraud reward distribution tool that makes it possible to do fair and secure community token allocations. We expect to complete the project in Q4, and look forward to releasing it to the community. Additionally, we enhanced our network analysis tools to improve blockchain activity tracking and observability, providing essential insights into network performance. Internal development environment setup has been streamlined for faster diagnosis of potential consensus protocol issues including enhanced internal developer node deployment using LMDB snapshots.

Some initiatives initially considered in Q3 have not been prioritized, given a strategic focus on other enhancements for the overall Concordium experience.

Architectural and application design of the AI Provenance Certificates continues. The system uses ConcordiumID’s Verifiable Credentials to build trust rails for the AI ecosystem, and is receiving much interest. The enhanced ID suite on iOS, designed to enable zk-proof-based ID verification (such as age and nationality) within the CryptoX wallet, is nearing completion.

Ongoing research and development is done on the portable KYC system, alongside industry partners. Lastly, development of Smart Contract components — a library of reusable tools intended to streamline smart contract creation — remains unprioritized for now. These projects may be revisited as priorities evolve within the Concordium ecosystem.

What’s Coming in Q4

In Q4, we’ll be rolling out a series of updates and tools to enhance both user experience and developer support across the Concordium ecosystem.

Wallets, wallets, wallets…

The latest version of the mobile wallet suite, CryptoX v2.1 introduces a smoother onboarding experience, improved ID suite, and a redesigned interface for a more streamlined experience. Meanwhile, the browser wallet is undergoing a much needed revamp. More than 70 screens have been redesigned for a much simpler user experience. Over the coming quarters, the browser wallet will continue to roll out features tailored for sophisticated use (traders, developers, accountants etc).

Developers, developers, developers…

To continue our work to enhance the Concordium developer experience, we are introducing developer-focused DApp pipelines, simplifying the creation and deployment of applications on Concordium. We’ll also bring the open-source code of the scalable airdrop framework to a version ready to be adopted by the community.

On the analytics front, we’re continuing the network analysis tools initiative with expanding the gRPC interface exposed by the concordium-node for better diagnosis of consensus protocol issues. Additionally, a major CCDScan revamp is underway, with a complete backend rewrite aimed at improving service quality and facilitating community-driven enhancements going forward.

Lastly, to ensure ongoing network resilience, we plan to conduct mainnet load testing through distributed production speed tests. These tests will help identify performance bottlenecks and clarify areas of focus for future platform scalability improvements.

Looking Ahead

As we move into the final quarter of 2024, our focus remains on building a resilient, scalable, and community-focused blockchain. With Protocol 7, we’ve laid the groundwork for enhanced network performance, and with the upcoming product updates, we aim to make Concordium even more accessible and valuable for users, developers, and institutional partners alike.

Stay tuned for these updates, and thank you for being part of Concordium’s journey toward a more secure, decentralized, and innovative blockchain ecosystem.