Glue dApp Development Strategy: A Proactive and Integrated Approach

Glue’s dApp development strategy is designed to balance the benefits of a permissionless ecosystem with the need for proactive and integrated development. By supporting high-quality projects and taking an active role in providing essential functionalities, Glue ensures a robust and user-friendly experience from the outset. This approach, coupled with a strategic roadmap and vision, positions Glue to lead the way in creating a cohesive and innovative blockchain ecosystem.

The Glue dApp development strategy diverges significantly from the conventional approaches adopted by most Layer 1 blockchains. Typically, L1 blockchains focus on building the underlying technology and then wait for external developers to fork or build protocols from other blockchains onto their platform. This passive strategy often results in significant time lags before the L1 becomes truly useful, and the quality of projects can be highly variable. While this model has certain benefits, it also comes with substantial trade-offs. Glue aims to capture the benefits while mitigating the negatives of this approach, adopting a more integrated and proactive model similar to Apple’s strategy with its App Store.

Proactive Ecosystem Development: The Apple Model

Apple’s App Store offers a vast array of applications across various categories and quality levels, but Apple itself provides the crucial functionality pieces, such as the phone app and browser. Users then have the option to switch away from these core apps if they wish. Glue’s approach is analogous: while cultivating a permissionless ecosystem, Glue ensures that essential functionalities are provided directly by the foundation or its sponsored entities, offering a seamless and cohesive user experience from the outset.

Two Core Approaches to dApp Development

1. Permissionless Ecosystem with Developer Support: Glue is committed to maintaining a permissionless ecosystem where innovation can flourish. We recognise the importance of helping developers build high-quality products, and we will actively support them through various means, including auditing, raising liquidity, and promoting the best new protocols. Unlike other blockchains that may prioritise the sheer number of live protocols, Glue focuses on quality over quantity. Our goal is to assist a select number of high-calibre projects to deploy and succeed on the Glue Network. This approach ensures that users have access to reliable, secure, and innovative dApps that meet their needs.

2. Active Ecosystem Development by the Foundation: Especially in the early stages, the Glue foundation will take a hands-on approach to ecosystem development. This involves directly developing and deploying key protocols and services to ensure the availability of essential functionalities. For example, an entity sponsored by the Glue foundation will develop the Glue Hub, the aggregation platform that provides users with access to the best products and services available on the Glue Network. Additionally, the foundation will deploy a variety of proven and best-in-class open-source protocols and integrate them into a cohesive ecosystem, Glue ensures that users have access to a comprehensive suite of financial services right from the start. This strategy guarantees a robust and user-friendly experience, reducing the reliance on external developers to fill critical gaps.

Strategic Roadmap and Vision

Glue is committed to having a well-defined roadmap that guides the development and evolution of the ecosystem. While the execution and delivery of this roadmap will ultimately be fully decentralised, the foundation believes in the importance of having an overarching vision to ensure coordinated and strategic growth. For example, once adequate liquidity is achieved within the ecosystem, the focus and funding can shift from incentivizing liquidity protocols to exploring and developing new use cases.

This proactive and strategic approach allows Glue to adapt to the changing needs of the ecosystem and its users, ensuring sustained growth and innovation. By providing foundational functionalities and fostering a supportive environment for developers, Glue sets the stage for a vibrant and dynamic ecosystem that can evolve and thrive over time.