Is the plan for this project to be invite-only forever? Or just for a limited period of time?
I think we are all familiar with famous growth stories based on an invite-only model. (Facebook, GMail, Pinterest, Spotify)
But, I think in all of the above cases, the product eventually CAME OUT of this invite-only stage and became publicly available.
I'm not saying this is needed for Merit to be successful, but I'd like to understand if there is some plan for this.
No, it's not in plan. Here invites are not to restrict access to project, exactly the opposite, it's supposed to make it grow. Algorithm for generating invites are dynamic so there won't be out of stock - if more invites are used, more invites will be distributed.