Full text of Backpack Roadmap, from Armani.

People often show up to Backpack for the first time and ask the question: why do you KYC?

Some people think Backpack is a DEX. In part, because some people know me for having worked on one of the first onchain CLOBs. In other part, because the path we have walked has, in some ways, been shared by many other perp DEXs. We've built a multi-node operator, verifiable ledger as the foundation for the exchange. We've built spot, spot-margin, borrow-lend, and perps, all cross margined and cross collateralized together into a single unified portfolio. We've taken that portfolio and have given it access to transparent money markets. We've connected the exchange not to just one network, but to every major network. We have daily proof of reserves for privacy preserving portfolio verification. Not only do we have one of the most comprehensive self custodial wallets, but from the beginning, we've set out to build the most trust minimized product possible. As a result, a lot of people refer to Backpack as a DEX disguised as a CEX. Although such a comment is flattering, it's not really correct for one simple reason: Backpack is not censorship resistant.

Over the next year we will begin to fork from the traditional DEX path, taking advantage of two, going on three years of compliance work we've put in behind the scenes to place us at the unique intersection of CeFi and DeFi. While there's an endless amount of new DEXs cropping up everyday trying to dethrone Hyperliquid, Backpack is the singular new player in a post FTX world to attempt the regulated path. Our goal is simple: become the largest crypto native financial institution in the world, supporting all L1s, all DEXs, and bringing the best that crypto has to offer to traditional finance. The next year will be roughly broken up into three phases.

Automated liquidity provisioning. If the events of October 11 taught us one thing, it's that we must embed the liquidity provider of last resort into the exchange itself, and so we are immediately building an automated liquidity provisioning platform to ensure liquidity in even the most extreme of circumstances. We've already assembled a world class team with decades of HFT experience to not just build this platform but to productize it for all users to utilize.

Trading bots. The community has been asking for grid bots since the exchange genesis. On top of this new liquidity provisioning system, you'll be able to create new subaccounts, define trading strategies, deposit funds, and let the bot trade on your behalf. There are several directions we can take this. Templated strategies, a DSL for trading (anyone remember FTX's quantzone?), and more. To start, we'll ship grid bots, and then take community feedback from there.

Vaults. Once we have trading bots for the public, we will use the same infrastructure to introduce a vault for order book liquidity provision, allowing us to guarantee liquidity in the most extreme of circumstances and bolstering liquidity on the exchange for all symbols. This will be valuable for rapid new listings in particular. The details of how we will expose this vault publicly are still up in the air. For now, we're working on the technology.

Collateral conversion facility. One of the key challenges faced on October 11 is that Backpack Exchange is itself a neutral third party, i.e., it doesn't hold positions or collateral on its balance sheet. All liquidations are done in real time at the prices available. To change this, we will be introducing a collateral conversion facility to provide more flexible liquidations that can be sourced from not just Backpack, but from any exchange. Even if liquidity disappears on Backpack for some reason, we will gracefully fall back to this facility, allowing us to expand the types of collateral we allow and fortifying the exchange in the face of Black Swan events.

RFQ. Another long awaited feature the community has asked for has been a "convert" feature, allowing one to directly swap from one token into another token, but the RFQ is much more than just a simple UX. It will serve as the primitive that allows us to source liquidity for non-crypto assets in the future. The RFQ is ultimately a new trading primitive akin to the order book, allowing us to open up the universe of trading symbols to anything and everything--without requiring us to rely on the order books for markets that might not make sense to put on an order book, which includes things like RWAs and regional markets. Long story short, the RFQ will allow us to connect the exchange to any and every financial product in the world.

Pre-market perps. The primary reason to introduce pre-markets is less about the volume on these markets, and more so that we can be there for day 1 perp listings. This has become the de-facto way to launch new perps and so we'll add it to the product suite for completeness.

External validators. In addition to our daily proof of reserves, third party validators will be able to provide continuous, real time proofs of the entire exchange ledger at all times. This large step will rule out an entire class of malicious attacks that centralized exchanges have the ability to perform on their users. No back doors. No unfair transaction processing. Verifiable balances but also verifiable market fairness and integrity. One of our goals is to be the most trust minimized regulated financial institution in the world, and running the exchange as a private multi-validator blockchain is a big step in that direction. We think this is one of the key things that is obvious to everyone in crypto but that the larger word of finance has yet to adopt.

Global compliance. Regulation and compliance isn't about building a moat, although I understand it is for some. For us, regulation is about access to new asset classes and new counter parties we currently don't have access to. The most important innovation this cycle is a regulated product: the DAT. The most important bridge in crypto is a regulated product: fiat ramps. And arguably the most important asset class to grow tokenized value over the next decade is a regulated product: securities. Regulation is a highly contentious topic. Many people hate it for good reason. Some people love it for good reason. Others love it for not so good reasons. The bottom line is that to build what we want requires compliance around the world. This is extremely hard, extremely expensive, and extremely rare amongst crypto native companies. It's going to unlock a lot.

New regions. Today, we are active in about ~48% of the world's economy. As we continue to onramp into Europe, we set our sights onto Japan and the USA, where we plan to expand to about ~90% of the world. And as we unlock each region, we unlock new product.

Fiat + FX. Today, most apps are either destroying you on fiat on/off ramp fees, have extremely restrictive size limits, or don't even give you the option to on/off ramp to begin with. On the other hand, many know Backpack for its best in class zero fee, global USD on/off ramps for unlimited size. Doing this at a high level is notoriously difficult. It requires great relationships with banks. It requires high fidelity and trust in one's compliance. And as a result, most don't offer it. Nevertheless, we're going to expand this offering beyond USD into every currency around the world. Today, we have USD. Tomorrow we'll expand into EUR and JPY--and then beyond. We want to have every currency and every fiat on/off ramp to not just become a crypto exchange but a global money hub for the entire world. First fiat rails, then FX markets, later remittances, and then continue to double down.

Banking services. Alongside our fiat rails, we will expand into full fledged banking services. Think Checking/Savings accounts, IBANs for every user, and the ability to use your Backpack account for anything and everything you would use a vanilla bank for. Direct deposits. Payroll. Or simply wiring money to a family member that has never used crypto before. While there will be an entirely new generation of people that skip traditional banking altogether and only know crypto products, they will still need access to the banking system for day to day life. We're building for these users to have everything they need inside Backpack.

Cards. A banking like product is incomplete without the ability to use your assets in the real world. We want to not only to allow you to not only trade, not only send money to friends and family, but also to pay for dinner with your crypto balance, to open up credit lines with it, and to never have to offramp your stable coins or crypto assets into traditional finance. Imagine swiping your card, borrowing USD against your BTC, and then topping it up at the end of the month automatically with a direct deposit from your payroll direct to your Backpack account.

Incentive programs. There's many incentive programs to consider once the seasons campaigns ends. New listings and launch pools will continue. New products like IEOs will be introduced. And the most classic, time tested incentive program vehicle from traditional finance: cards. There's a lot we're excited to roll out on this front. Stocks. Trading is one thing. Saving is another. And investing is an entirely different thing altogether. It's tempting to want to lump all of these things into one category, but that would be a mistake. The reason why we place such an emphasis on stocks--real stocks--is that long term investing requires the real thing. Dividends. Legal rights. Voting rights. And SIPC insurance. If you want any of those things, you need to comply with securities laws, and so this will be an iterative process with a two stage roll out. Stage 1 will be with Superstate, an SEC registered transfer agent, providing the ability to trade a select set of tokenized stocks, real stocks, like you would any token. Stage 2 will be with our regulated broker dealer, where you will get access to the entire universe of stocks you would expect (AAPL, TSLA, etc). In both cases, we intend to make everything cross margined and cross collateralized, which is why we are much more excited about physical stocks rather than perps or any other derivative. Blue chip equities makes for high quality collateral, and is one of those things that sounds so obvious when you hear it, and you immediately wonder why no one has executed on it. Imagine taking your Apple stock, your BTC, borrowing USD, and then off ramping it to buy a house.

DATs. Digital Asset Treasuries rose to prominence this cycle, providing a regulated vehicle for regulated counterparties to get crypto exposure legally and compliantly--this constitutes some of the largest pools of capital in the world that were previously locked out of crypto due to the lack of appropriate vehicles to invest in. It's our belief that these DATs will continue to play an important role in bringing traditional asset inflows into the crypto economy around the world. These vehicles need licensed, regulated platforms to operate, and so we're currently in discussions with a couple new DATs to use Backpack as their primary custodian and exchange for their treasury vehicles. Although DATs are just one example, as we continue to grow as a platform, we fully expect this pattern to repeat as more and more traditional players look to get into the industry.

IEO/IPO products. Capital formation is going to continue moving on chain to tap into liquidity around the world. Up until now mostly crypto native projects have done this via tokens. While that will continue to happen, the set of market participants is going to expand significantly, and when that does, the amount raised will as well. We'll be ready.

While the above might be a lot, there's even more not on this list--things like adding native DeFi "mullet" integrations to the exchange, new listings like commodities (e.g. gold), new chains, continuing to significantly expand our wallet product, creating tailored experiences for new user segments (e.g. a retail friendly product for the sole purposes of saving rather than trading), or adding completely new product lines like. Backpack has come a long way over the past few years. While it's tempting to take short cuts, we are happy take the long road, chipping away at things few in the space will attempt --slowly, steadily, and brick by brick, so that what we build can last not just one cycle, but stand the test of time.

Today we are very much a crypto exchange, some might even call us (incorrectly) a perp DEX. Tomorrow we will evolve into a comprehensive financial services provider for a new generation of finance. It's a big mountain to climb. One we've been climbing for several years. One we'll be climbing for many more. If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that the only way we reach the top is if the people here want to reach the top. The super power of crypto isn't just the tokens or the technology. It's the people behind it that impose their will to change the world. And if the community here can achieve that, then we can achieve anything.

The beauty of an exchange and the beauty of a wallet is that these products have an incredible sense of gravity about them. The product and the community is in an incredibly fortunate and privileged position to be able to support the broader crypto ecosystem in ways that few products can. If there's one thing I'll leave you with, it's to think about this gravity when it comes to Backpack. The people here are as much a part of the product as each feature we release. Every listing, every launch pool, every airdrop, and every reward campaign comes as a direct result of having a strong community that people want to adopt for themselves. We saw this with Mad Lads, and we continue to see it with Backpack. If there's one thing I would ask, it's to not only support Backpack but to support the crypto ecosystems we work with more broadly. Their success is Backpack's success--and the success of everyone here that is at the center of it all.

Thank you to everyone that's been with us until now. Let's end the second half of Season 3 strong, and prepare for an even better Season 4. It will be our last.

Armani