An Introduction to NAV Roadmap 2018 (Part 1): Lightning Network, NavChange, NavMorph, NavDelta, NavFund, NavCoin 5.0, NavPi 2.0, Navtech 2.0.

As we dive head first into the new year, the markets have been ridden with a series of unpredictable fluctuations. This week's bitcoin drop to sub 10k has been no exception. As with every correction or crash, smart money is siphoned from risky and over-optimistic investments and moved into promising and rewarding ones. This is where Nav's new roadmap comes into the picture. Being overshadowed by recent events, Nav's roadmap has gone largely unnoticed, thus this article serves to present the exciting and ambitious range of projects that the Nav team has laid out for 2018.

This article serves as an introduction to Nav, explaining its intended direction for 2018 along with an overview of its upcoming projects and what one can look forward to. The introduction is broken down into two parts to make the contents easy to comprehend; this article covers the first part of NAV's roadmap, namely the NavCoin branch which focusses on the vision of Nav as a global currency and its mass adoption for daily use.

Nav . 2018

Being in the cryptospace for some time, the 'NavCoin' roadmap builds on its current advancements in blockchain technology. The design of Nav's code and built, since its inception, has placed it at an advantage against many other cryptocurrencies that are currently being bogged down by high energy consumption, congested networks and high transaction fees. NavCoin runs on a Proof of Stake (PoS) system which gives rise to its fast transaction speeds of 30s block times, high transaction capabilities (1120tx/s) and extremely low fees (~0.0001Nav); the very ideals that many coins strive to achieve. Also Nav deploys a subchain technology for optional anonymous technology (Navtech) and an easy to use mobile wallet (Navpay, which will be available in iOS very soon). With solid and proven blockchain functionality, the development team has come up with a roadmap consisting of a range of projects to further enhance the adaptability of the Nav blockchain for both personal and commercial use.

Not in any order of completion.
(timelines will be updated by the team soon).

Nav Content Series

One of the first and most important item that the marketing team will be working on as we begin the year is the creating and curating of content to explain the details and the inner working of the systems at work behind the technical jargons in the roadmap. How many times have we come across whitepapers that fill their content with vague technical jargons and complex process diagrams that are not easily comprehensible to new investors. I do admit that there is a need to create an eye-catching roadmap with unique and interesting titles but Nav takes this one step further to focus on the content of the projects; the team plans to package the content into bite size pieces to not only help the community understand what they are planning to implement but also to empower the community to promote Nav in an educated and informed manner.

Lightning Network & NavChange

For those that are well versed with the advancements in cryptocurrencies, the lightning network is an increasingly important feature that many coins have been adopting over time. In a nutshell, the implementation of the network allows for atomic swap capabilities between supported coins. For example, if you have litecoin (which has lightning network implemented too), you can use it to swap for Nav at almost instant transaction times at low fees and vice versa. This will make Nav more accessible for those that want to obtain Nav from other coins, reducing the fees and process of going to an exchange to buy bitcoin and trading it for Nav. Furthermore, it also enhances the scalability of the coin to adapt to increased loads on the network when Nav is adopted as a global currency negating all issues with scalability in the future.

In addition to the implementation of the lightning network, the development team will be creating NavChange, an exchange platform for the trading of coins based on the lightning network. As with all things Nav, this platform will be designed with the main aim of making all the components of cryptocurrency easily adoptable by the general population, giving everyone access to the lightning network and its capabilities; the platform will also provide Nav with a whole range of trading pairs that operate on the network, helping Nav to break free from its nav/bitcoin pairs as bitcoin's future hangs in the balance. With this Nav will be able to expand its capabilites and allow other cryptocurrencies to access its features much more easily.

NavMorph

One of the most exciting and promising tech that the team have been working on since last year is NavMorph. Rebranded from Polymorph, NavMorph is a privacy feature that allows other non privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies to use Nav as a medium for conducting anonymous transaction. The process involves exchanging the specific cryptocurrency into Nav to be funnelled through Nav's anonymous tech and then to another cryptocurrency of the user's choice. The platform was planned to be built onto changelly but recent concerns regarding fees and reliability have led the developers to consider developing NavMorph as a feature built into the lightning network; this allows NavMorph to perform its intended function with or without changelly, making privacy accessible to all. With this, demand for Nav will increase as it serves to provide an integrated service for other cryptocurrencies in the market.

NavDelta & Business Partnerships

The next part of NavCoin's roadmap focusses on integrating Nav into everyday businesses, encouraging it as a medium of exchange in the physical world. NavDelta, works with Point of Sale systems used in current consumer markets to seek a possibility of integrating the use of Nav in payment systems. Imagine using Nav as a medium of payment while making your next purchase at your favourite store. While this can currently be done using Navpay, there are many technical and pragmatic considerations from a merchant's point of view that a mobile wallet built for consumers doesn't take into consideration. Thus, a system that caters to merchants would very much bring forth easy integration into existing real world systems. Furthermore, NavDelta doesn't just offer Nav as the only medium of payment, it aims to promote the use of multi-crypto payment, thus, NavDelta would serve as a payment gateway for everyone that desires to use cryptocurrency for businesses and personal projects in the near future.

Navcoin 5.0 "Kauri"

Another important element for a cryptocurrency to function effectively is the presence of a good interface for its core wallet. Currently Nav can be stored on the Navcoin core, Navpay and electrum wallets. However, as Nav moves towards mass adoption and higher usage volumes, a good and multi-functional wallet is required. Features such as multi account numbers, pin numbers and recurring payments are some of the items that would be added into the revamped wallet. All these along with features that you would find in real world banking applications will also be included to facilitate the storage, payment and tranferring of Nav, realising the idea of a purely decentralised banking system. With this vision, Navcoin 5.0 'Kauri' leaves a lot for exploration and development, expanding the application and use of Nav as more than just a payment/privacy-oriented cryptocurrency.

NavPi 2.0 "Kowhai"

An integral part of Nav lies in its staking technology which a multitude of forgers contribute in supporting the network. Instead of a group of miners with high powered GPUs, staking requires a low-energy intensive process to support the network; this can be done in the form of a regular PC or in the form of a NavPi (raspberry pi with Nav image). As a raspberry pi is extremely energy efficient, it has become the focal point of Nav's staking technology, employing a network of low energy Navpi to forge the blocks on the network. The current system has a simple interface with a range of available tutorials (navtechservers) that help users to operate the raspberry pi. However, with further advancements in its blockchain and valence technology, the team has planned to further improve the Navpi's interface and enhance the experience of staking and performing other tasks on a Navpi so that anyone will be able to operate a Navpi seamlessly.

Cold Staking

As a continuation of Nav's commitment to security, staking technology requires users to commit their coins to the staking process which means the coins are held on the Navpi throughout the process. Even though, the coins are safe as long as usual security measures are taken, the team has decided to work on the implementation of cold staking in 2018. This will allow a script/smart contract to be written so the coins do not need to be held directly on the Navpi and can be held on a secure device such as a ledger nano s, which means there will eventually be support for Nav on ledger wallets or similar systems ensuring your coins are secure while earning from staking.

NavFund

At the end of 2017, the Nav community suggested the possibility of a Nav community fund in order to kick start a whole range of development around Nav. This allows the community to come up with proposals to promote and develop Nav, attracting developers, marketers, artists and businesses. Anyone that has a proposal will be able to put their ideas up and let the community vote (using Nav's staking technology) on whether the proposal will go through or not. Payments will also be done after the project has been completed or in phases and will be voted on before any release of payment, preventing abuse of the system. Currently there is a testnet for the NavFund, feel free to check out the testnet and contribute in testing out the prototype. Once the community fund is up, funding for a lot of projects such as increasing marketing campaigns, exchange funds, project development funds, etc will push Nav's development exponentially and everyone can play a part in contributing to Nav's success.

Navtech 2.0 "Rimu"

The final and most important technology that Nav will be contributing to the cryptospace is the decentralisation of privacy. In Navtech 1.2, the concept of servers for the supporting of Nav's privacy tech was implemented. However, this still exhibits the flaws that every centralised system has even if there are multiple systems running concurrently. This issue will be resolved in the near future with Navtech 2.0 "Rimu". Rimu seeks to make use of Nav's Valence network to connect all of its nodes on the network to create a system where every wallet will be part of the privacy process, thus, making a truely distributed and trustless system for ensuring privacy. More on Valence technology will be covered in the upcoming whitepaper.

This concludes the first part introduction to Nav's Roadmap; the above only covers the NavCoin branch developments that the team has laid out. The roadmap is extremely exciting and ambitious in nature requiring a lot of work for the dev team to pull off such a roadmap.

Do look out for part 2 of the introduction to Nav's Roadmap which will focus on the other branch of development that the Nav team will be working on, the Valence "Anonymous Dapps" Branch. But before that, keep an eye on the launch of the Valence whitepaper which will be out real soon and for Nav updates every wednesday.

With all that the dev team has planned for in this roadmap, it looks like 2018 is going to be a big and exciting year for Nav.

Invest well and prosper.

Useful Links

Website
https://navcoin.org/
https://navcoin.org/project-roadmap/

Navtech Tutorials
https://navtechservers.com/

Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/NavCoin/
https://www.reddit.com/r/NavTalk/

Discord
https://discord.gg/UVzFh3r