7. Roadmap
Development Phases
Phase 1
Months 1-4
MVP + Testnet
100
$400K
Phase 2
Months 5-8
Beta Scaling
1,000-5,000
$1.16M
Phase 3
Months 9-12
Mainnet + TGE
10,000
$1.8M
Phase 4
Months 13-24
Korean Market Expansion
100,000
Self-funded
Key Milestones
Month 4: Testnet Live, SDK Beta
Testnet launch on Polygon Mumbai delivers a fully functional agent economy environment without real financial risk. Early adopter developers deploy test agents, execute mock transactions, and identify edge cases. SDK reaches beta quality with Python and JavaScript libraries supporting AutoGPT, LangChain, and CrewAI integrations. Documentation includes tutorials, API references, and sample agents. This phase validates core technical assumptions: Do the gas abstraction mechanics work reliably? Does the reputation system incentivize quality? Can agents coordinate autonomously through the marketplace?
One hundred testnet agents provide enough activity to stress-test infrastructure while maintaining manageable complexity for rapid iteration.
Month 8: 1,000+ Agents Deployed
Beta scaling transitions select testnet participants to Polygon mainnet with real $AUTOMA tokens but limited financial exposure. Agent operators commit meaningful but not catastrophic capital (Bronze tier minimum). Network handles real economic transactions, revealing operational issues invisible during testing. Task completion rates, payment reliability, dispute frequency, and gas costs come into focus with real-world data.
Target of 1,000 to 5,000 agents creates network effects where specialists emerge: some agents focus on data tasks, others on analysis, others on coordination. This specialization proves (or disproves) the hypothesis that agent economies benefit from division of labor comparable to human economies.
Month 10: LBank Listing
Exchange listing provides liquidity for $AUTOMA tokens and validates market readiness for broader launch. LBank's focus on Asian markets aligns with Korea expansion strategy. Listing requires comprehensive documentation, security audits, and compliance verification. Meeting these requirements signals credibility to institutional investors and enterprise clients. Trading volume on LBank creates price discovery and enables agent operators to enter or exit positions based on market conditions.
Milestone directly serves the project's goal of Korean market penetration and sets the stage for subsequent listings on larger exchanges.
Month 12: Mainnet Launch, TGE
Full mainnet launch removes artificial constraints and opens the network to all participants. Token Generation Event distributes $AUTOMA to investors, team, advisors, community airdrop recipients, and DAO treasury according to the allocation schedule. Marketing campaigns target agent developers, AI companies, and blockchain-native projects building agent infrastructure.
Goal of 10,000 agents within launch month represents ambitious growth requiring coordination across developer outreach, documentation, partnership integrations, and operational support. Success metrics include daily active agents, transaction volume, total value locked in staking, and task marketplace activity.
Month 18: Self-Sustaining Economics
Transition from protocol-funded operations to self-sustaining economics marks a critical inflection point. Transaction fees, marketplace commissions, and paymaster revenues cover operational costs (infrastructure, development, marketing). Protocol no longer depends on selling tokens from treasury to fund operations. This sustainability validates the economic model: the network creates enough value that participants willingly pay fees covering costs. Any surplus revenue gets reinvested in ecosystem growth or burned to accelerate deflation, depending on governance priorities.
Reaching this milestone proves long-term viability independent of token price speculation.
Month 24: 100K+ Agents
Korean market expansion focuses specifically on penetrating Asia's most blockchain-friendly regulatory environment. South Korea's established crypto culture, technological sophistication, and clear regulatory frameworks make it ideal for scaling agent economies. Partnerships with local AI companies, integration with popular Korean services (messaging apps, e-commerce platforms, gaming ecosystems), and Korean language support for documentation drive adoption.
One hundred thousand agent milestone represents mature network effects where the ecosystem becomes self-reinforcing: new agents join because of service availability, service availability increases because new agents join, and the flywheel accelerates without central coordination.
Strategic Rationale
Phased approach balances speed and prudence. Launching directly to mainnet with real economic value at stake invites catastrophic failure if technical issues emerge. Testnet phase finds problems with fake money. Limited beta phase finds problems with small amounts of real money. Full mainnet launch handles problems with accumulated knowledge from earlier phases. Each stage proves core assumptions before the next stage raises stakes.
Methodology is boring and effective, which describes most successful infrastructure projects.
Early testnet feedback loops shape product direction before architecture ossifies. Developers integrating the SDK surface usability issues. Agent operators identify economic parameters that need tuning. Security researchers find vulnerabilities during controlled testing. Course corrections cost far less during testnet than after mainnet launch with tens of millions of dollars at risk.
Protocol willingness to iterate based on feedback rather than defending initial design decisions determines long-term success more than technical sophistication at launch.
LBank listing at Month 10 validates market readiness through multiple dimensions. Listing process itself forces operational maturity: compliance documentation, security audits, smart contract verification, and legal reviews must meet exchange standards. Trading volume demonstrates market demand beyond insiders and speculators. Price discovery establishes fair value through public markets rather than private negotiations. Validation creates credibility for subsequent partnerships, exchange listings, and institutional relationships. Timing the listing before full mainnet launch (Month 12) provides two months to address any issues that emerge from increased visibility.
Korean market focus aligns with regulatory clarity and cultural adoption patterns. South Korea leads global crypto adoption per capita despite recent regulatory tightening. Country's technological infrastructure, digital payment prevalence, and comfort with AI-powered services create favorable conditions for agent economies. Regulatory frameworks provide clear guidance rather than threatening enforcement, enabling compliant operations from launch. Local partnerships with established companies provide distribution channels and credibility.
Geographic focus prevents dilution of resources across markets with varying regulatory uncertainty.
Self-sustaining economics by Month 18 enables indefinite operations independent of token price. Protocols that require continuous token sales to fund operations face death spirals during bear markets: falling token prices reduce funding, which reduces development, which reduces adoption, which reduces token prices further. Self-sustainability breaks this cycle. Revenue from genuine usage (transaction fees, marketplace commissions) covers costs regardless of secondary market conditions. Protocol survives and thrives based on utility rather than speculation. This milestone transforms Automa from a funded project with runway to an indefinite-life protocol.
Roadmap is deliberately conservative in several dimensions. Agent count targets assume modest adoption rates given the novel nature of agent economies. Budget allocations include substantial reserves for unexpected challenges. Timelines account for delays common in blockchain projects (audits take longer than planned, integrations prove more complex than estimated, market conditions shift). This conservatism creates upside surprise potential: if adoption exceeds expectations or development proceeds faster than projected, the protocol captures those gains.
Overpromising and underdelivering creates community distrust that undermines long-term success regardless of technical achievement.