The Unstoppable Roadmap

The Morse-to-Shannon migration is substantively complete. Milestones included recovery allowlist additions, the Ledger recovery executed September 2025, and resolution of multiple non-custodial unstaking flows. An admin recovery mechanism replaced slow, manual interventions with an efficient path for edge-case accounts. Morse holders’ stake and balances have been successfully ported, freeing PNF to focus fully on Shannon’s growth.

Shipped PIP-41 — the first programmatic deflation mechanism in Web3 — tying token scarcity directly to network usage on MainNet. The settlement layer was rebuilt for efficiency, delivering a major reduction in per-block events, resolving a significant seed-node memory leak, and batching validator reward distribution to eliminate precision loss. New per-session spend caps and overservicing protections ensure applications no longer pay for no-show suppliers. The economic engine is now efficient, predictable, and audit-clean.

Through the Grove transition, PNF assumed direct operational responsibility and stood up its own gateway on PATH SDK at api.pocket.network in November 2025, with round-robin load balancing across PNF and community gateways (DevDAO Cloud, Pokt.ai, Stakenodes). Public RPC service continued uninterrupted. PATH was overhauled with reputation-based QoS, native WebSocket support for streaming workloads, and a high-performance reverse proxy for standardized subdomain routing across the gateway ecosystem.

Total expenses dropped from $9.4M in 2024 to $4.7M in 2025 — a ~50% year-over-year reduction — backed by full pro-forma transparency and consistent quarterly P&L reporting. Key leadership was solidified, with Otto Vargas established as Head of Protocol and Jorge Cuesta anchoring PATH, load balancer, and RelayMiner work. Sustainable runway through 2026 is secured independent of new revenue, with line-item visibility for the DAO and community.

Resolved a chain halt (gateway unbonding consensus panic in EndBlocker) without requiring an upgrade handler, and closed 13 P0–P3 audit findings from the v0.1.31 diff. Block-height stall detection now gives operators earlier signals than waiting for downstream symptoms. EventClaimSettled was extended with new indexer fields, making tokenomics changes independently verifiable. Pocketdex (Shannon-native indexer) and Pocket Explorer are in active development to complete the observability stack. CometBFT is current on security patches and CI infrastructure is stabilized.

Launched the Foundation Partnership Program with Radix as the first confirmed chain-foundation partner, providing wholesale-cost RPC at non-profit rates and giving PNF anchor revenue plus ecosystem alignment. Opened the LLM integration channel with PnyxAI live and two additional partners in the pipeline. Released first-party blockchain-query-mcp (MIT licensed), a natural-language MCP server powered by Pocket public endpoints — validating Shannon as the data transport layer for AI agents and establishing PNF in the agentic AI category early.

RelayMiner matured from a single-instance tool into production-grade infrastructure with optimistic relaying, signer caching, WAL-backed restart resilience, and memory optimizations, plus active development on a high-availability multi-transport architecture with Redis-backed shared state. The supplier path was hardened with historical relay-mining difficulty tracking and session/claim mismatch resolution, restoring revenue lost to parameter drift. Pocketd CLI improvements shipped, and Igniter — a TypeScript staking platform — is in active development to open staking ops to non-CLI operators.

Shipped authoritative written artifacts across docs.pocket.network — protocol explainers (probabilistic proofs), end-to-end operator walkthroughs (u0022Relay Your Own Serviceu0022), tokenomics, operator and developer documentation cleanup, and PNF-published standards. The docs site itself was hardened by removing vulnerable Docusaurus dependencies. This is the layer that unblocks Igniter UX, One-Click Gateway, and external framework integrations: PNF sets the standard, the ecosystem builds on it.

Make Pocket one of the easiest networks to join as a supplier, application, or gateway. Reduce time-to-first-relay through a structured onboarding program, a more intuitive operator experience, and tooling that helps providers evaluate participation before committing — designed to work for both technical and non-technical operators.

Coordinated improvements targeting the experienced operator’s daily friction — distinct from broader onboarding work. Focus areas include refining the supplier experience around stake management, claim flows, and error handling; improving RelayMiner ergonomics and reliability; and dedicating time each release cycle to code health and refactors so engineering velocity stays sustainable.

A specialized web-based version of SAM (Simple Appstake Manager) designed to connect with Soothe and other wallets, removing the need to run the pocketd binary locally. Aimed at making application and gateway management accessible to operators without dedicated hardware or command-line experience.

Rebuild Pocket Explorer with full PNF ownership of the codebase, domain, infrastructure, and underlying data. The refreshed explorer will reflect Pocket’s updated brand and serve as a sovereign, ecosystem-aligned tool — strengthening transparency, observability, and the network’s public face for operators, developers, and the broader community.

Research-first initiative exploring gRPC support within PATH to expand the range of workloads Pocket can serve, including AI inference and modern API patterns. Scope and protocol-level support will be defined as the research progresses, with implementation considered in a later phase based on findings.

Publish anonymized, aggregated relay data openly as a public good — giving ecosystem companies, analysts, and researchers a foundation to build analytics products, dashboards, and market intelligence tools on top of Pocket. PNF provides the data layer and does not monetize it directly, leaving room for the ecosystem to innovate.

Expand partnerships in which partner foundations provide POKT to support their chains on the network — shifting this from a foundation expense to a partnership asset. The model strengthens ecosystem alignment, reduces operating costs, and creates a more sustainable path for chain support over time.

Establish Pocket as foundational infrastructure for AI agents before the category consolidates around incumbents. Coordinated workstreams span documentation tailored to agent developers, gateway positioning that treats agent traffic as a first-class use case, and targeted go-to-market to reach agent builders directly while the category is still forming.

A coordinated set of programs to grow the demand side of Pocket — more chains, more apps, more builders, and more active gateways. Includes continued iteration on the F-Chains program, a formal Developer Grants program for builders, and a Gateway Growth Program to expand the active gateway base.

Two coordinated workstreams to strengthen PNF’s financial position. The first continues disciplined expense reduction across hiring, vendor relationships, and scope, building on the savings already achieved. The second introduces an enhanced pro-forma format with actual-vs-projected reporting and variance analysis, giving the DAO clearer financial visibility.

A coordinated effort to create a developer-facing resources platform built on top of the protocol. Includes a GitHub-hosted hub for templates, integrations, and packaged offerings; pre-built templates for common use cases like chain access, AI inference, and API integration; and flagship tools like PATH and SAM positioned as MCP-compatible resources discoverable by both human developers and agents.

A time-phased business development motion across 2026. Early focus on building a sustainable pipeline of formal partnership discussions, followed by converting the most advanced opportunities into early-win outcomes, and closing the year with a high-value push on priority targets across the broader Web3 ecosystem.

Streamlined deployment for organizations that want to run their own gateway on Pocket. The work is aimed at making gateway operation accessible beyond deeply technical teams, with AI-native startups, SMBs, and agent-driven traffic as primary use case framing for how this lowers the barrier to participation.

Research initiative evaluating how supplier chain participation should evolve to encourage specialization, improve quality of service, and create healthier supplier economics. Multiple models are under consideration, with research outputs informing eventual governance proposals, parameter changes, and supplier transition planning to ensure changes are sustainable for the network.

Two-phase effort to make Pocket’s quality signals first-class. The first phase focuses on instrumenting and openly publishing granular QoS data and integrating it into developer SDKs. The second phase delivers public-facing dashboards and operator tooling — surfacing network health and gateway visibility for the ecosystem.

Research initiative exploring stablecoin-based payments for accessing services on Pocket, in addition to POKT. The work includes evaluating design options that preserve POKT’s role in the network’s demand mechanics while making access easier for a broader range of users — particularly aligned with emerging payment patterns in the agentic AI ecosystem.

Build Pocket routing modules across the leading open-source agent frameworks, prioritizing those with the largest and fastest-growing developer bases. The goal is making it straightforward for any agent developer to route through Pocket using public documentation, with a sequenced rollout across the dominant frameworks shaping the category today.

A PNF-operated incubator to attract and support AI-native builders on Pocket. Combines funding, hands-on technical guidance, go-to-market support, and direct PNF team access — positioning PNF as an active builder of the AI ecosystem rather than infrastructure alone, and making Pocket a launchpad for what gets built on top of it.

Research-first initiative exploring an on-chain reputation scoring system that allows the protocol to automatically route traffic toward the highest-quality suppliers based on historical performance. Reputation would compound over time — rewarding consistent performers and strengthening Pocket’s positioning as a performance-verified routing layer that delivers reliable service to applications and gateways.

Research-first initiative exploring how suppliers can dynamically shift chain coverage in response to real-time traffic patterns. The goal is to reduce the time and friction involved in re-staking, allowing suppliers to capture demand on high-traffic chains more efficiently and improving overall network responsiveness to shifting workloads.

Complete and integrate previously developed IBC work so Pocket Network and POKT can connect natively with other chains in the Cosmos ecosystem. Enables native token movement and broader interoperability across Cosmos-based networks, expanding POKT’s reach and the network’s overall composability with the wider ecosystem.

Strengthen the POKT DAO so governance outcomes reflect the full community, not just the largest holders. Workstreams span research into alternative voting models, iteration on voting mechanisms and proposal quality, and a published governance playbook to lower the barrier for new contributors.

Maintain and expand the written foundation across docs.pocket.network — keeping protocol documentation, operator guides, tokenomics explainers, and PNF-published standards current as the network evolves. Ongoing work supports downstream ecosystem efforts and ensures the standards the ecosystem builds on remain accurate, accessible, and aligned with the latest releases.

A two-phase, ongoing motion to strengthen POKT’s exchange presence and liquidity. The first phase focuses on gap analysis and a prioritized listing campaign across major exchanges; the second covers continued execution on listings and maturation of market-making relationships to support broader holder access.