Reference

Roadmap & gaps

Last updated: 2026-07-23

A frank list of what the local dev stack does, what is missing to be a public testnet, and what is not on the roadmap yet.

This page is intentionally honest. The local stack is a development tool, not a deployed network. Each row in the table below is a real gap. The timeline column is a forecast, not a promise.

Where we are

The local dev stack runs end-to-end on a single Windows + WSL2 + Docker host. A merchant can be onboarded, an invoice created, a payment received, and a sweep executed — all locally, with no public exposure.

Where we are going

timeline
    title Local dev ? public testnet ? mainnet
    section Local dev (now)
        Single-validator PoA : CometBFT, 1s finality
        4 deployable components : chain, gateway, pay, explorer
        Full local stack : docker compose up
    section Public testnet
        HSM/KMS key custody : replace PAY_MNEMONIC
        Multi-validator set : remove PoA single-key risk
        Public RPC pool : gateway behind TLS + WAF
        Faucet service : rate-limited, captcha
        Blockscout : replace local with hosted
    section Mainnet (not in scope)
        Audit of pay/sweep
        Audit of chain precompiles
        Bug bounty
        Validator delegation
        Cross-chain bridge (optional)

The gap analysis (local ? public testnet)

Area	Local dev	Public testnet	Effort
Key custody	`PAY_MNEMONIC` in env	HSM or KMS with remote signing	2–3 weeks
Validator set	Single PoA key	4–7 validators, threshold signatures	1–2 weeks
RPC exposure	`localhost:8080`	Public endpoint behind WAF, per-IP rate limit, DDoS mitigation	1 week
TLS	None	mTLS between `pay/*` and chain, HTTPS at gateway	1 week
Faucet	Not exposed	Rate-limited HTTP service with captcha	1 week
Blockscout	Local Docker	Hosted (managed or self-hosted)	1 week
Monitoring	Prometheus + Grafana on localhost	Hosted Grafana + alerting (PagerDuty / Opsgenie)	1 week
Backups	None	Nightly Postgres snapshots, off-site, encrypted	1 week
Logging	Docker logs	Centralized (Loki / Datadog / CloudWatch)	1 week
Secrets	`.env` file	Managed secret store (AWS Secrets Manager, Vault, etc.)	1 week
CI/CD	None	GitHub Actions for tests, image build, deploy	2 weeks
On-call	None	Pager rotation, runbook review, game days	1 week
Documentation	This site (developer-focused)	Operator + merchant + end-user docs	2 weeks
Testnet token	Reuse local 2BABY	New genesis, fresh distribution	1 day
Bug bounty	None	TBD platform (Immunefi, etc.)	1 week to set up

Total estimated effort: 12–16 weeks of one engineer, plus review/audit.

What is explicitly NOT in v1 (or v2)

These are deliberate cuts, not oversights. Each is revisited annually.

Cross-chain bridge. Bridging requires an audit partner, a separate validator set, and a different threat model. Estimated 6 months of work; not in v1 or v2.
Stablecoin support. Requires either a centralized issuer (regulatory) or a fully algorithmic design (audit + oracle). Not in v1 or v2.
Mobile wallet native builds. Expo covers the team''s bandwidth; native iOS/Android would 2x the wallet repo. Revisit when BabyWallet has >10k MAU.
Multi-validator local. Local multi-validator setups are not representative of a public testnet (different network topology, different latency). We test multi-validator in the staging environment instead.
Custom mempool / MEV-aware ordering. Not needed for retail payments; revisit if a public testnet is abused.
Slashing. PoA does not need it; if we move to PoS, this comes back on the table.
Confidential transactions. Requires a research effort on ZK integration with cosmos/evm. Not on the 12-month roadmap.

How to propose a change

Open a GitHub issue with the proposal label.
Use the template in proposals/TEMPLATE.md.
The team triages proposals every two weeks.
Accepted proposals get a number and move to Locked decisions once implemented.