Roadmap

DIN is progressing through a carefully structured roadmap that gradually enhances its decentralization, scalability, and governance capabilities. This roadmap is divided into key phases, each designed to build on the last, ensuring a robust and resilient network.

Phase	Milestones	Description
Federated Phase (2024)	Joining DIN, processing transactions	Alpha customers (Infura, MetaMask) route API traffic and seed developer calls; providers meet performance thresholds and handle transactions, with payments managed through traditional invoicing.
Progressive Decentralization (2024-2025)	DIN as an AVS, decentralized transaction processing, DIN Payments Layer 3, DIN Foundation and DAO, incentivized testnet	Early stage integration of economic security and staking/slashing through DIN as an AVS; providers gain routing flexibility beyond Infura; payments move to Layer 3 on-chain protocol; DIN Foundation oversees shared services and governance transitions to DAO-driven decision-making.
Full Decentralization (2025-2026)	Permissionless onboarding, advanced payments, and DAO-managed innovation fund	DIN becomes fully permissionless, enabling automated service level agreement enforcement, dynamic pricing, cross-protocol staking, and DAO-led growth initiatives, establishing DIN as a decentralized, community-driven infrastructure for web3.

Federated Phase

The Federated Phase is the foundational stage of DIN, where the network's initial components are deployed, tested, and refined in a controlled environment with trusted alpha customers. This phase focuses on establishing DIN's basic operational capabilities, ensuring service reliability, and verifying economic viability before fully opening the network.

Joining DIN

• Acceptance criteria and minimum performance thresholds - During this phase, DIN implements strict entry requirements for node providers and watchers, ensuring that each participant meets predefined performance standards. Providers must demonstrate compliance with service-level agreements covering metrics such as response freshness, data validity, and uptime.

• Assigned identities for DIN routing - Each participant is assigned a unique identity, enabling seamless routing of developer API requests to the appropriate node providers. This identity management system lays the groundwork for effective transaction processing and tracking, setting clear accountability for each operator within the network.

Processing transactions for DIN

• Transaction routing from alpha customers - Infura and MetaMask generate developer API traffic, which is routed through DIN provider nodes. This federated setup enables DIN to validate its routing efficiency, latency benchmarks, and load-balancing algorithms under real-world conditions.

• Traditional invoicing and payment validation - In this phase, payments from alpha customers to node providers are handled through traditional invoicing, allowing DIN to test and refine its financial tracking and reward distribution processes. This traditional invoicing approach provides DIN with critical insights into payment workflows, helping to prepare the network for decentralized, onchain payment models in later phases.

Progressive Decentralization

In 2025, DIN will transition from its federated setup to a progressively decentralized network. This phase introduces additional layers of decentralization, with expanded functionality for transaction routing, payments, and governance, marking the beginning of DIN's evolution towards a permissionless infrastructure. With inspiration, the Cosmos Hub introduced a modular approach to interoperability, allowing networks to expand and evolve through phased upgrades.

DIN as an AVS

The practical implementation of the network watcher has explored usage of DIN launching as an Autonomous Verifiable Service (AVS) on EigenLayer. EigenLayer's AVS model provides a robust framework for economic alignment and real-time performance enforcement. DIN has integrated new functionalities that streamline agent onboarding, improve oversight via a watchtower, and establish a structured accountability model without launching a token that may have floating value.

• Onboarding components - Ability for providers to stake and add their wallet identities to join the DIN Router Registry contracts

• Economic security service level agreements - Watcher and AVS operator capabilities for staking, slashing, and challenging the onboarded node performance and reputation of entities in DIN.

The DIN AVS system aims to deploy watchers with a dedicated "watcher node kit," which operates as both a monitoring tool and a user-friendly interface to the DIN network backend. Through the AVS interface, watchers access essential modules for onboarding DIN providers, viewing onboarding notes, tracking network status, and enforcing slashing protocols.

Acting as operators on EigenLayer, DIN watchers not only monitor service accuracy and reliability but also uphold AVS-based slashing and staking rules for performance infractions. Watchers gather and analyze response data by running simulated requests to ensure adherence to service level agreements. Their results are then published on a public event stream, providing transparency and informing DIN's crypto-economic incentives. By aligning with EigenLayer's AVS structure, DIN strengthens its validation processes, ensuring real-time accountability and economic security for all network participants.

Decentralized traffic processing

• Provider-driven routing capabilities - Providers in the DIN network will gain the ability to route service traffic through various web3 gateways, not limited to Infura. This expanded functionality decentralizes the routing process, creating an open network where multiple web3 gateways can interact with DIN providers.

• DIN Payments Layer 3 network - DIN will implement an onchain payments layer on Linea as a Layer 3 to facilitate real-time, decentralized payments among DIN providers and web3 gateways. This payments layer will allow for seamless, automated transactions, eliminating the need for traditional invoicing and streamlining economic interactions within DIN. Operators will be compensated based on their service contributions, with payment records transparently available onchain.

DIN Foundation and governance

• Establishment of the DIN Foundation - The DIN Foundation will be formed to oversee shared services, community initiatives, and technical upgrades, ensuring that DIN remains aligned with the community's evolving needs. The Foundation will manage essential services like security audits, research funding, and cross-protocol collaborations.

• Decentralized governance and DAO - The introduction of a DIN DAO will enable community-led governance, where stakeholders propose and vote on protocol upgrades, SLA adjustments, and economic policies. Token holders who stake within the DAO gain voting rights, empowering them to shape the future of DIN and ensuring that governance decisions reflect the collective interests of the network.

Incentivized testnet as a mechanism design laboratory

Incentivized testnets are invaluable for stress-testing decentralized infrastructure and optimizing network mechanics before mainnet deployment. The DIN Incentivized Testnet is a vital component of DIN's mechanism design, allowing the network to test, validate, and optimize its economic structures in a live, controlled environment. The testnet enables DIN to fine-tune its staking, slashing, reward, and governance mechanisms before mainnet deployment.

Economic testing and reward calibration

• Staking and slashing simulations - The incentivized testnet allows DIN to run simulations of staking and slashing mechanisms, identifying optimal thresholds for penalties and ensuring that the economic deterrents are effective without being overly punitive.

• Reward structure optimization - By distributing rewards based on testnet performance, DIN collects data on the effectiveness of its incentive structures, including high-performance bonuses and routing efficiency rewards. This feedback helps the DAO calibrate rewards to ensure they align with desired behaviors and network standards.

• DAO policy feedback - Testnet participants are encouraged to provide feedback on the economic and governance policies in place. This input allows the DAO to make informed adjustments, ensuring that the network's policies are fair, practical, and aligned with community expectations.

Participant onboarding and reputation building

• Early access to economic mechanisms - Node providers, watchers, and web3 gateways gain early access to DIN's staking, slashing, and reward systems through the testnet. This experience allows them to adapt to DIN's operational standards and fine-tune their infrastructure, reducing the learning curve for mainnet.

• Reputation establishment - Participants who perform well on the incentivized testnet build a reputation that can carry over to the mainnet, giving them a competitive edge in request routing and access to higher-tier rewards. This early reputation system encourages operators to establish themselves as reliable contributors to DIN's ecosystem.

Data-driven mechanism refinement

• Performance data collection - Real-time data on SLA compliance, request throughput, and operator availability from the testnet informs adjustments to the mainnet mechanism design. The DAO reviews this data to refine parameters, ensuring DIN's economic model supports scalability and network resilience.

• Iterative testing for robust mechanisms - The testnet enables iterative testing of new policies and mechanisms, allowing the DAO to make adjustments based on test outcomes. This iterative process ensures that only well-tested mechanisms are deployed on mainnet, reducing the likelihood of economic inefficiencies or security vulnerabilities.

Full decentralization and governance-driven expansion

In the final phase, DIN will operate as a fully decentralized, community-governed infrastructure, with robust economic mechanisms, autonomous routing, a sustainable business model, and a mature governance framework.

Open network access and permissionless onboarding

• Permissionless onboarding of operators - The DIN onboarding process will become permissionless, enabling anyone who meets the staking and SLA requirements to join as a node provider or watcher. This open access expands DIN's capacity to accommodate growing demand and diversifies the operator base, enhancing network resilience.

• Automated SLA compliance and enforcement - Through further integration with EigenLayer's AVS model, DIN will implement automated SLA compliance checks and penalty enforcement. This ensures that performance standards are consistently maintained without manual intervention, supporting a fully autonomous infrastructure.

Advanced payment and reward structures

• Dynamic pricing and custom service level agreements - As DIN matures, the DAO may introduce dynamic pricing for API requests and allows operators to offer customized service level agreements. This flexibility enables providers to compete based on specialized services, fostering a competitive and adaptable market for blockchain API services.

• Cross-protocol staking and partnerships - DIN will explore partnerships with other web3 projects, such as staking collaborations, liquidity pooling, and cross-chain integrations, enhancing DIN's economic resilience and extending its ecosystem reach.

DAO-managed innovation fund and ecosystem growth

• Funding for ecosystem development - The DIN DAO will establish an innovation fund, supporting projects that build on DIN, integrate with other blockchain networks, or advance web3 infrastructure. This fund will fuel ecosystem growth and attract developers, researchers, and contributors to enhance DIN's utility and reach.

• Community-driven upgrades and enhancements - As a fully decentralized network, DIN's growth will be guided by community-driven proposals and DAO-backed initiatives. The DAO will support upgrades to DIN's core protocol, expand governance mechanisms, and enable ongoing innovation, ensuring that DIN remains adaptable and responsive to technological advancements and user needs.