LocalSolana: The Next Chapter

I’m excited to announce that I’m taking the helm at LocalSolana, and I want to share my vision for where we’re heading.

LocalSolana represents a crucial piece of infrastructure as Solana’s only open-source Web3 P2P exchange. I’m honored to lead its next phase of development.

Thank You Jrey

First, I want to acknowledge the tremendous work, sacrifices and leadership of Jrey that have brought LocalSolana to where it is today. He laid the foundation that makes everything we’re doing now possible. I’m grateful and excited to have his continued guidance as an advisor to the project.

Our Foundation

LocalSolana isn’t just another exchange – it’s a Web3-native network built on Solana smart contracts, designed from the ground up for true decentralization. Our mission is to change the dynamics of prosperity in the developing world by enabling direct, borderless peer-to-peer exchange.

The challenge isn’t that people lack resources – it’s that they lack access to efficient, trusted networks for exchanging value. Through decentralized P2P trading, we can help unlock the massive economic potential that’s currently constrained by legacy financial systems and artificial barriers.

This foundation gives us unique opportunities to grow and evolve in ways that traditional exchanges simply cannot. We’re not just building another trading platform – we’re creating infrastructure that can help transform underserved economies into vibrant, connected markets.

LocalSolana exemplifies the future of decentralized value exchange and we aim to fully realize that future.

Immediate Focus

In the coming months, we’re concentrating on three key areas:

1. Technical Stability: Enhancing our infrastructure while maintaining our commitment to decentralization, so we can launch a public beta ASAP.
2. Community Growth: Focusing marketing efforts initially on Nigeria, Venezuela and Colombia while welcoming traders globally.
3. Sustainable Development: Building towards either a public good model with minimal fees or a community-centric token model in order to achieve break-even status by May 1.

Technical Priorities

Our immediate development focus is on enhancing platform stability and user experience:

• Ensuring the contracts are robust and ready for audit
• Implementing updates for reliable price stability and faster market updates
• Expanding supported payment methods and improving their management interface
• Adding in-platform notifications and enhanced Telegram integration
• Integrating voluntary Civic KYC for additional trust and verification options
• Developing user trust features including trusted/blocked user management
• Optimizing infrastructure to reduce costs while maintaining performance

Community First

Your role in LocalSolana’s future is crucial. We’re developing an on-chain governance tool that will let you directly determine our roadmap through feature requests and voting.

Active community members will have opportunities to shape the project’s direction and potentially become co-founders, with meaningful rewards from any token generation event (TGE) we may (or may not) initiate.

Community Roles

A. New Contributors

This is a unique moment to become part of LocalSolana’s foundation. Early contributors have a real opportunity to become co-owners of the protocol through:

• Participating in our on-chain governance to shape the network’s future
• Growing the trader network, especially in our focus regions
• Contributing to marketing and community building
• Helping with development and technical improvements

B. Governance

We’re introducing an on-chain governance tool that puts real decision-making power in your hands. Through this tool, you can:

• Submit feature requests and development proposals
• Evaluate and discuss community suggestions
• Vote on priorities to shape our development roadmap
• Build reputation and influence within the LocalSolana ecosystem

Your active participation in governance now will help determine:

• Which features we prioritize
• How we allocate resources
• Which regions we focus on next
• Our approach to tokenomics and sustainability

This isn’t traditional corporate governance - it’s direct participation in building the future of P2P exchange on Solana. Early governance participants who make meaningful contributions will be recognized in any future token generation event.

C. Ambassadors

If you are currently a LocalSolana ambassador and want to continue presenting yourself as one (despite the discontinuation of financial incentives), please fill out this form before Feb 7, 2025 to coordinate with us.

At this time, however, we’re not looking to name any new ambassadors.

Transparency

We believe in being open about both our challenges and opportunities:

• The remaining team — myself and Viopol with Jrey as our advisor — is working on a volunteer basis, driven by our belief in this vision and our desire to support this community.
• Future progress will be slow but sure-footed. We’re in no rush to raise huge amounts of money. We’re not going to push the product faster than it is safe to go. We’re focused on quality, safety and serving the community before anything else.
• Our current funding comes from a Step Finance (thank you George Harrap!) grant covering infrastructure only through the end of April.
• Transaction fees will be set at 1%, with half directed to our trader referral program.
• We’re exploring various funding models to ensure sustainable growth.

Join Us

Unlike Web2 platforms, we’re building a truly community-owned Web3 network exchange. Your contributions now can earn you a meaningful stake in LocalSolana’s future — a future which could involve becoming the best P2P exchange in the world, changing the dynamics of prosperity in the developing world and a TGE (among other awesome stuff).

The code is open source, the vision is clear, and the opportunity is real.

Connect with us on Telegram and X (@LocalSolana, @LocalSolanaES) to start making your mark on the future of P2P exchange.

Together, we’re building something important – a truly decentralized Web3 P2P exchange that puts its community first. Let’s make it happen.

Photo by David Ramírez on Unsplash