IRISnet, Chainlink and China’s Huge BSN Connection
A look into the enterprise-level blockchain network of China.
Interoperability protocols have been at the forefront of blockchain innovation in the recent years. As the cryptocurrency space grows and various projects achieve smart contracts functionality, high transaction speed and DeFi innovations, there’s always been a need for all these blockchains to connect so that they’re not separated in their own chains. This is what the Cosmos/Tendermint ecosystem is trying to achieve through its interoperability IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol.
IRISnet is a project built with the Cosmos/IRIS-SDK, it provides the infrastructure required for its iServices, which are used for enterprise-level business applications. Iris is being developed by the Bianjie and Tendermint teams. Harriet Cao, CEO of Bianjie and co-founder of IRISnet, recently joined Tendermint’s new five-person Board of Directors. The company’s mission is to build more utility, usability, and ultimately value into the Cosmos Network.
[Ms. Cao previously worked at IBM Research in various capacities including Director of IBM Research Shanghai Lab and Big Data Analytics Leader for IBM Global Labs.]
IRITA is a permission chain, the enterprise-focused branch of IRISnet. Based on IBC and by impoving it, IRITA offers privacy computing solutions, on/off chain services and blockchain interoperability, supporting data exchange between heterogeneous computing systems (e.g. public chains, consortium chains, and legacy systems/conventional enterprise applications).
China’s BSN
China’s Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) officially launched in Beijing on April 25, 2020. The BSN initiative, a joint effort led by the State Information Center of China, China Mobile, China UnionPay, and Red Date Technology, is a standardized, nationwide public infrastructure network across different regions and business sectors to support faster and cheaper blockchain development and deployment.
The Blockchain-based Service Network is a cross-cloud, cross-portal, cross-framework global infrastructure network used to deploy and operate all types of blockchain applications.
There are three types of direct participants of the BSN:
- the first are cloud service providers that, through the installation of free BSN public city node software, make their cloud service resources (CPU, storage and bandwidth) accessible through the BSN and carry out sales through the BSN;
- the second are blockchain framework providers (specially designated consortium blockchains) that, in accordance with the 5 BSN’s framework adaptation standards, make adaptations and then deploy them on the BSN so that developers can select the adapted frameworks to deploy applications;
- the third are portal operators that can use the BSN with existing cloud service portals or developers’ portals to create Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platforms quickly and at low cost and can then provide BSN-based blockchain application development, deployment and operating services to their own developers.
“With the great support of China’s three telecommunications carriers, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, the BSN has already created almost one hundred public city nodes in China. Furthermore, the BSN Development Association is currently in discussions with global carriers, cloud services providers and other companies within the blockchain industry, mapping out issues surrounding local deployment of public city nodes and portals in all countries around the world. It is expected that by the end of 2020, there will be approximately two hundred public city nodes worldwide.”
IRITA will be used by BSN as a Blockchain framework provider. It carries the potential of being widely applied in finance, health care, supply chains, and other business scenarios. Recently, Bianjie also joined BSNDA, the development association of BSN that manages technical development, cooperations, research and media outreach.
BSN will be the first global infrastructure autonomously innovated by China and can be rapidly deployed on a global scale.
One example of a company that is part of the BSN Developer Association:
JD Digits, the fintech subsidiary of JD.com. It raised $2 billion in 2018, targeting for a $28b valuation by the end of 2020. The purpose of JD Digital is to connect financial and physical industries using digital technology data, AI, IoT & blockchain.
Since the beginning of 2020, Bianjie has been actively collaborating with Red Date Technology to ensure that IRITA aligns with BSN’s adaptation standards. An example is the encryption module Bianjie developed according to the specifications of China’s National Encryption Algorithm.
“The internet is formed by the connection of all cloud resources and data centers using TCP/IP protocol, and the BSN is formed by the connection of all cloud resources and data centers using a set of blockchain operating environment protocols. Both are public infrastructure and do not belong to any single organization.”
BSN Introduces Chainlink Oracles through IRITA
This key integration will enable governments and enterprises to incorporate validated real-world data into their BSN applications using Chainlink oracles via the IRITA interchain service hub. Professional Proof of Stake (PoS) operator SNZ Pool will run nodes to support the operation.
Chainlink is the world’s leading oracle network that works with enterprises such as Google and Oracle. Its technology enables on-chain blockchain applications to incorporate off-chain real-world data in a highly secure and reliable manner. As such, BSN selected Chainlink as the preferred oracle network to enable BSN applications and smart contracts to access data from outside the blockchain (e.g. weather, financial asset prices, IoT data, location information, and much more).
Xiang Dai, Deputy Secretary of the BSN Development Association and Director of Planning and Consultation with the China Mobile Group Design Institute, stated:
“Using Chainlink and IRISnet networks, dApps will connect to off-BSN trusted data sources. We believe that this integration will transform blockchain applications and foster greater growth of the BSN ecosystem — in China and around the world.”
[A public city node (PCN) is the basic organizational element of the BSN. While the “node” part of its name is easily confused with a blockchain node, PCNs are not blockchain nodes; furthermore, the BSN itself is not a chain. Each PCN is a resource pool, used to allocate a portion of the computing power, storage and bandwidth resources from the cloud service or data center on which it was deployed to the BSN.]
“The ultimate objective of the BSN is to become the internet of blockchains. Traditional internet has facilitated, in a low-cost manner, the instantaneous transmission of data between two computers anywhere in the world, and the BSN, in a low-cost manner, will facilitate the mutual trust of data between multiple business organizations anywhere in the world.” — BSN Whitepaper
You can read my review of IRISnet here:
Price Reaction
$IRIS token’s price surged from the bottom of May, 2020, marking an increase of 250% since the initial announcement of collaboration with BSN.
The price of $LINK also increased recently reaching a new all-time-high of $8.14 and a market cap of $2.85 billion, making it briefly in the top 10 cryptocurrencies followed by a small retrace.
Chainlink & IRISnet BSN Event — July 15
More news will be shared about this partnership during this event.
Cosmos Stargate Upgrade
Stargate is a large & long-awaited Cosmos upgrade that will introduce cross-chain transactions through the IBC, higher transactions throughput (10x-100x increase) and much more. IRIS Hub will be greatly improved by reaching its full technological capabilities. The testnet is expected to launch on July 27, targeting for a full-release by the end of Q4, 2020.
In my opinion, $IRIS has a lot of potential, maybe even bigger than $ATOM in terms of adoption, since it’s targeting enterprise-level usability by offering a wide variety of services ranging from privacy computing solutions and business analytics powered by big data to DeFi tools and more.
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