Winding Tree 2022 Updates Report
Introduction
After what can only be described as an action-packed 2022, it’s been a year where we have been through a great transformation. A LOT of work has been happening behind the scenes and unless you’re proficient with navigating and understanding code on GitHub or privy to team meetings, then progress and direction weren’t always clear to the community.
The report and visual are designed to give a snapshot view of projects being worked on and are intended to be actively working documents that will be regularly updated. The visual above is supported by the following report, where more details and context are given to each of the active projects:
Integrations
For Q4 we are working on various integrations, with some of them already live. Winding tree launched with 50 cities and as of a few weeks ago, now has global inventory available. In the coming weeks we will be rolling out local area searches, which will mean when a user zooms out of a city, properties will be available in the surrounding areas (current inventory is more focused on cities and will build out from there).
The other milestones to look forward to in Q4 are the Coinbase wallet connectivity on beta.win.so. Once we have integrated the wallet SDK, we then need to be approved by Coinbase to integrate WIN dapp, within their mobile wallet browser (and Coinbase Pay feature) Please note, the mobile wallet & Coinbase Pay integrations are subject to our applications being accepted by Coinbase.
Partnerships
We are working on several exciting partnerships with some key hotel chains that hopefully should be announced before the end of the year (subject to 3rd parties). These synergies are an example of us moving to a marketplace which directly connects the buyer & seller. It will be the first step of the platform offering more p2p content and is a great signpost and example of adoption by large businesses. These announcements are primarily reliant on integrating and testing with Derbysoft and we will keep the community updated if delays with 3rd party or testing etc. (see also Product Infrastructure)
We are also excited to announce a huge partnership with a top 100 buyer of corporate travel; with p2p inventory being made available to their user base. This will be an announcement with a media publication highlighting our official partnership. Please note that this is subject to 3rd party approval of the content for the article, which takes time and is out of Winding Tree’s control. (They also want to be the entity that announces the partnership)
Product UI/UX
We have recently launched mobile support for beta.win.so, which is a welcomed update. Also, cancellation policies and meal inclusions will help give travellers more options when booking, as well as levelling up the platform to competition.
Bridging crypto from other chains and on-ramping options will allow the user to bridge crypto, from an unsupported chain and also have an option to on-ramp more easily. Bridging/swapping will be enabled at this stage by LI.FI widget & SDK. Also, on the checkout page after the user has connected his/her wallet there will be an option to on-ramp via Ramp or Mt Pelerin and also Coinbase Pay (subject to approval). This will help reduce the barriers to the user topping up a wallet with a credit card and also CEX held funds.
The Coinbase Wallet mobile browser as mentioned above is subject to their approval… We hope to be able to announce this in due course.
Product Infrastructure
This section seeks to explore the various upgrades being worked on, that play into the architecture of the blockchain technology Winding Tree is building into the protocol. The aim is to have true p2p content but as per recent community calls and conversations on Discord, we know that there will be various stages to this. Connecting to PMS systems is the first step on the journey to a decentralised marketplace.
We will explore and explain PMS in more detail in future posts, but in short, they are systems that accommodation providers use to manage bookings, from the various channels they have connected. MEWS is the first provider that we will connect with, with work going on right now we hope to announce the launch of new p2p inventory, early in the new year. Software providers for bedbank systems are also being explored as possible future connections.
Derbysoft at this stage is a key infrastructure for the marketplace and provides the medium for us to be able to directly partner with large travel providers. Expect a lot more big brand partnerships as a result of this connectivity via Simard.
Winding Tree Improvement Proposals (WIPs)
In preparation for the formation of the Winding Tree DAO, we cannot wait to share the WIP drafts for the community to debate, shape and vote. We had our first WIP approved (WIP — 0) back in April this year and that laid out the governance process for raising a Winding Tree Improvement Proposal (WIP). There were also four WIP drafts released in May, that addressed the following;
WIP — Draft: End LIF2 Claim Period.
WIP — Draft: LIF to Gnosis Chain Migration
WIP — Draft: LIF Token Feature-set Finalisation
WIP — Draft: Community Development fund
My thoughts at this stage would be we put the first draft above on the back burner for now. The second draft is listed in the pipeline and is something that will be engaged in the new year. The final two should be pushed for a more focused debate in the not-too-distant future. However, before any of these, I have been working on some engaging proposals to be launched to the community. Here is an intro on what we can look forward to:
WIP — Draft: Community Onboarding Campaign.
The WIP seeks to set out the terms and incentives for a campaign where community members would receive a referral fee for onboarding accommodation providers. The WIP will propose some figures for referral fees, but is very much looking for community input with firming up the numbers and helping form an attractive proposal, to maximise community engagement.
WIP — Draft: Harnessing Hive Mind of Community for PMS selection.
Tying in with the WIP draft above, this one will spell out how an onboarding campaign needs to be structured, in relation to the community helping select the systems to prioritise. This can then lead to a more concerted effort when onboarding accommodation providers. The notion behind these initiatives is that accommodation providers still need to be manually onboarded after we have connected to their PMS provider; the community could help in a big way with building inventory on the marketplace.
WIP — Draft: Deciding Charity to Partner and Potential Fee.
The long-term goal is to have community funds for each region we travel to, where we’ll get to vote on what local projects treasury funds will be used for. This helps put money back into communities that is otherwise lost to intermediaries, allowing travel to have a real positive impact on developing economies that rely heavily on tourism. This WIP will explore partnering with an established international charity and an ongoing charitable donation that could be made as the platform grows. Eventually, we need to organically build out local cooperatives that would manage local funds; so partnering with an already established charity would help us lay foundations for the future DAO.
Pipeline
These are projects that are due to be worked on and are at various stages of investigation. When the execution and timeline are agreed upon, tasks will be moved to be an active project. Currently, in the pipeline we have the following:
· Alternative PMS-Investigations — Ongoing work to investigate further integrations.
· Chat Support — Chat feature on the dapp.
· WIP-Next reward for traveller e.g. USDC — Additional rewards with LIF & NCT.
· WIP-Partnering with other DAOs — Vote on options.
· CEX Token Listing — Subject to 3rd party approval.
· Flights — Flights marketplace.
· New Markets: Activities, Events etc — Exploring new markets to disrupt.
· Token Migration — Migrating old LIF1 tokens to the new LIF token.
Final Words
You can expect the pipeline to be an active constituent, where you will see projects appear that the team are working on. We also see it as a good opportunity for the community to have visibility and with any luck certain members having experience or contacts to help facilitate projects. Ultimately, it would be great for community members to contribute any ideas for the pipeline that could be investigated and subsequently planned with the team.
As mentioned above, you can expect multiple updates as we close off 2022. These reports will help play a key part in engaging the community with progress and you can anticipate regular updates around this.
Cheers, NTL
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