While we usually start our year-end reviews reflecting, we’re convinced “what’s next” is what you really want to hear about. As it’s also top of mind for the team, we begin our last 2019 community update providing a window into our thoughts and what we have been planning for.

There is an outline — a navigational direction that we’re ready to set sail towards. Having long been steeped in the market and contemplating the possibilities of what the technology has to offer, we believe it makes sense as our next step.

We’ve emphasized time and time again, there are four main pillars that we want to focus on: speed, scalability, trust and lastly, interoperability. But we have struggled with the word “interoperability” as it has come to have preconceived notions within the industry of what it means. Perhaps “integration” is more appropriate. How do we integrate digital assets into the financial services industry, beyond exchanges? If we truly want digital assets to reach mainstream, it goes beyond just the exchange or whether cryptocurrencies can be accepted at a café. We must explore opportunities and consider how digital assets can truly play a part in the larger financial network. It’s been a topic that has been gaining traction over the last half year, and something that has been on our radar even longer — Decentralized Finance, DeFi, and what it means for the larger digital economy.

While the first objective centers around the potential growth industry-wise, our second objective centers around the community. Token holders have long asked us about the utility of our token and how it can retain its value. The truth is, we do understand the frustrations our token holders face, and while we believe we’re doing good work, we also understand it may not directly translate in its current form.

We’re in the middle of budget meetings, tech meetings, and proposals to establish the roadmap for our future. For those that follow us on our various social media channels, we’ve been saying that we’ll have an updated roadmap beginning of next year. We do our best to keep to our word, but admittedly we’ve had to make amends in the past. Which is why we present our thinking for the future at this point rather than clear deliverables.

Similar to when we started, most of you know that it began with a whitepaper. Something that resonated far and wide with the larger community. But the whitepaper was more like a preliminary outline — a navigational compass, with the general bearings we were headed in.

Halfway through our journey, we decided it was better for us to step back from our hopes of running our own exchange, and instead, to focus on being a technology solutions provider. While we’ve definitely had to redefine the operational aspects of what we hoped to achieve, the ultimate goal remained. But why?

Operations can be distracting and come with their own set of risks. And whilst we remained dissatisfied with the tech, to divert our attentions and run the risk of opening up to more variables, it seemed like a luxury we didn’t have.

And now we’ve reached a point in our update for reflection. Once we decided to focus on the tech solution, we doubled down our efforts, and worked on OAX’s Layer 2 Protocol (L2X). The launch of our protocol in Q3 this year is what we’ve referred to time and time again as a “major milestone”. And a major one it was.

Having spent hundreds of hours over the span of 18 months, planning and programming, this was the first delivery of what we had set out to do. We demonstrated the speed, but it was the scalability that set the protocol apart. We spoke about trustlessness and behind it all, the dispute resolution process.

It was a major milestone, because it was our delivery on a variation of our initial proposition. The protocol, despite being different from what we set out to do, held the possibility of something more. The opportunity to work with different companies allowed us to see functional issues that occur from operation but from multiple sources. Even the dead-ends that we hit while developing the technology, gave us new learnings and perspectives on how to carry forward.

Perhaps the most satisfying indicator of our milestone came from the community’s response. It’s the community that makes our hardwork come to life, and nothing made us happier than to see the participation from users during our last AMA.

With this prospectus and this intent, we will set out to achieve our next major milestone. It’s exciting times for the team, and ever so symbolic that as this year comes to an end, we mark the end of one chapter for the company and await the new year to start the next chapter in our story.

We wish all of you a happy holiday season, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year with the tidings of new possibilities!

More about OAX Foundation:

Website: www.oax.org

Reach out to OAX Foundation via e-mail:

Collaboration Proposals: ProjectStallman@oax.org

Other Inquiries: Info@oax.org

Social Media:

Discord: discord.gg/ZH5YHkb

Twitter: twitter.com/OAX_Foundation

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/oax-foundation/

BitcoinTalk: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1943946

Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/OpenANX/

Telegram English: t.me/openanxteam

Telegram Chinese: t.me/oax_cn