Development Roadmap

Current Release

INTcoin is a production post-quantum cryptocurrency. Each release delivers a full node daemon, Qt6 desktop wallet, standalone miner, block explorer, and institutional custody features. The cryptographic foundation uses NIST-standardised ML-DSA-87 (Dilithium5) for digital signatures and ML-KEM-1024 (Kyber1024) for key exchange, providing resistance against both classical and quantum computing attacks. For the current version, supported branches, and active development items, the live content is loaded from ROADMAP.md.

Q2 2026 — Launch and Stabilisation

The initial launch phase focuses on network stability and security hardening. Genesis blocks have been mined for mainnet, testnet, and signet networks. DNS seed nodes are configured across three continents (UK, EU, US) with Tor hidden services and I2P bridges providing privacy-preserving connectivity. A testnet faucet allows developers to obtain test coins. The network is monitored via Prometheus metrics with Grafana dashboards tracking peer connections, block propagation, mempool activity, and mining hashrate.

Security milestones include resolution of 96 CodeQL security alerts, 31 unit test suites covering consensus, wallet, networking, and cryptographic operations, and 13 fuzz targets for protocol message parsing and script evaluation.

Q3 2026 — Ecosystem Growth

The ecosystem growth phase targets exchange integration, mining pool infrastructure, and hardware wallet support. Stratum v2 protocol implementation enables decentralised mining pools with encrypted connections and job declaration. Exchange integration documentation covers deposit and withdrawal workflows, cold and hot wallet architecture, and transaction monitoring via ZMQ webhooks.

Hardware wallet development begins with Ledger application support for Dilithium5 on secure elements, and Trezor integration through the PST (Partially Signed Transaction) workflow for air-gapped signing. Developer SDKs for Python and JavaScript simplify third-party integration with the INTcoin network.

Q4 2026 — Lightning Network and Mobile Wallets

The INTcoin Lightning Network is developed as a separate repository with post-quantum cryptography throughout. While INTcoin's two-minute block time handles most use cases on-chain, Lightning adds sub-second payment settlement and micropayment channels. The implementation covers BOLT-compliant channel state machines with Dilithium5 commitment signatures, HTLC scripts for trustless multi-hop payments, onion routing with Kyber1024 key encapsulation for post-quantum packet encryption, and a gossip network for decentralised channel discovery.

Mobile wallet development begins with SPV light client support using compact block filters (IIP-0203) for bandwidth-efficient synchronisation. Native iOS and Android applications will provide on-the-go access to both on-chain and Lightning payments.

2027 — Performance, Privacy, and Enterprise

The 2027 roadmap focuses on three pillars: performance optimisation, privacy enhancements, and enterprise features.

Performance improvements include AssumeUTXO snapshots for fast initial sync (hardcoded after one year of chain history), parallel block validation, compact block relay optimisation, and memory-mapped UTXO caching. These changes reduce node startup time from hours to minutes for new participants joining the network.

Privacy enhancements introduce CoinJoin coordination for transaction mixing, stealth addresses for one-time payment destinations, and Dandelion++ for transaction relay obfuscation. Combined with the existing Tor and I2P support, these features provide comprehensive financial privacy.

Enterprise features expand institutional custody capabilities with multi-signature wallet GUI, enhanced spending policies including time-based and geographic restrictions, compliance reporting tools for regulatory requirements, and formal key ceremony tooling for secure key generation events. Process isolation (IPC) separates the wallet, node, and miner into independent processes for improved operational security.

Lightning Network enhancements include multi-path payments for splitting large transactions across channels, trampoline routing for bandwidth-constrained mobile devices, channel splicing for resizing channels without closing them, dual-funded channels for balanced liquidity, and a Lightning Service Provider framework for managed channel services.

2028 — Privacy Layer and Smart Contracts

Advanced privacy features arrive in 2028 with Confidential Transactions using Pedersen commitments to hide transaction amounts, zero-knowledge range proofs for balance verification without disclosure, route blinding for payment channel privacy, and encrypted mempool submission to prevent transaction surveillance.

Smart contract foundations include script extension proposals, covenant support equivalent to OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY for transaction templates, vault transactions with time-delayed spending for theft protection, and programmable spending conditions for advanced financial applications.

Network scaling work addresses dynamic block size adjustment, block weight optimisation, UTXO set compaction, and pruned node improvements. Package distribution expands to Debian/Ubuntu APT repositories, Fedora/RHEL COPR, openSUSE OBS, Arch Linux AUR, and Alpine community/edge.

2029 and Beyond — Adoption and Governance

Long-term development targets enterprise adoption with PKCS#11 HSM support (pending vendor ML-DSA-87 firmware availability), multi-datacenter custody solutions, and jurisdiction-specific regulatory compliance frameworks. Decentralised finance primitives include a decentralised exchange protocol, lending and borrowing mechanisms, and collateralised stablecoin support.

Protocol research continues with post-quantum signature aggregation, quantum-safe multi-party computation, next-generation hash function evaluation, and soft fork infrastructure for protocol upgrades. Community governance evolves toward a decentralised model with a development fund mechanism, ecosystem grant programme, and annual third-party security audits.

Completed Milestones — v1.0.0

The v1.0.0 release delivers a comprehensive cryptocurrency platform. Core infrastructure includes post-quantum ML-DSA-87 signatures with ML-KEM-1024 key exchange, RandomX v2.0 ASIC-resistant proof-of-work, V2 encrypted transport using Kyber1024 and ChaCha20-Poly1305, full transaction relay with mempool persistence, and graceful async shutdown.

Wallet and transaction features include a Qt6 desktop wallet with embedded full node and optional RPC mode, HD wallet with SHA3-based derivation following IIP-0301 with coin type 2210, PST (Partially Signed Transactions) for offline and multi-party signing, TRUC (v3) transaction policy, package relay and fee estimation, four coin selection algorithms (BnB, SRD, CoinGrinder, Knapsack), and a descriptor wallet foundation.

Infrastructure provides a block explorer with testnet faucet, Prometheus metrics endpoint, REST interface for block and transaction queries, ZMQ notifications for real-time event streaming, block filter index for light client support, Tor and I2P privacy network connectivity, IIP-0204 Erlay transaction reconciliation for bandwidth-efficient relay, and over 110 RPC commands for full programmatic control.

Institutional features (opt-in build flag) provide Role-Based Access Control with multi-factor authentication, spending policies with multi-party approval workflows, address whitelisting with AML screening integration, tamper-evident audit logging with hash chain verification, and an external signer framework for key-isolated signing operations.

How to Contribute

INTcoin is an open-source project under the MIT licence. Contributors can check GitLab Issues for open tasks, join the Discord development channel, read the Contributing Guide in the repository, or submit INTcoin Improvement Proposals (IIPs) for new features. This roadmap is a living document and priorities may shift based on community feedback, security requirements, and ecosystem needs.