Berlin and blockchain

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Decentralized applications: an insurance protocol, a platform and a cosmos Berlin and blockchain

Berlin is home to more than 180 blockchain-based companies working on implementing decentralized projects, also called dApps, which fit the vision of Web 3.0. Three of them are briefly presented here: Lisk, Etherisc and the Interchain Foundation/Cosmos.

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With the help of blockchain processes, applications could be more distributed and at the same time more transparent than ever before.

(Image: Terry @blueskin public domain on Unsplash)

Lisk was founded in 2016 and has raised over 14,000 Bitcoin (BTC) in its ICO, making it the most successful German crowdfunding in history. The start-up spent three years in R&D in stealth mode. But now the company claims to be unmatched in speed and performance with a blockchain network.

Like the company name, the product name is “Lisk”. It is a platform for blockchain applications. According to Lisk’s website, “We are making blockchain accessible by creating a world where everyone benefits from this technology.”

  • The offer is divided into “Lisk Core” – the implementation of the “Lisk protocol”. The kernel provides users with the ability to configure and operate a node to expand and participate in a decentralized network.
  • The “Lisk SDK” is a software development kit that offers developers the ability to create a wide range of different blockchain applications based on the Lisk protocol. The SDK uses JavaScript and allows blockchain applications to be customized for a wide range of use cases.
  • In addition to tutorials and various services, Lisk improvement suggestions, also known as LIPs, are part of the offer. Together they form a suggestion system that allows transparent and open discussion about the development of the Lisk network. The LIPs themselves are technical documents designed to be hotly debated. LIPs are in line with the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals of 2011.
  • “Lisk Desktop” is the application of choice for the Lisk ecosystem, providing functionality to explore, monitor, manage and interact with the Lisk blockchain application platform on desktop devices, such as providing a “blockchain wallet” to send and receive LSK token, blockchain explorer, blockchain network monitor and lastly blockchain management for delegate votes.
  • Lisk Mobile, on the other hand, is a cross-platform user interface that provides functionality to interact with the Lisk blockchain application platform on mobile devices. It offers users access to key features such as providing a blockchain wallet to send and receive LSK tokens.
  • Max Kordek, CEO and founder of the Berlin-based company, announces: “The product features ensure that Lisk is the most scalable and secure blockchain network developed for enterprise use. It offers businesses a cost-effective way to adopt blockchain.

ethereal

Founded in 2016, Etherisc aims to make insurance fair and accessible through its open source and decentralized insurance protocol by enabling the collective development of innovative insurance products on the Ethereum blockchain. According to the vendor, the products are designed to increase transparency and inclusiveness in the insurance industry.

Projects currently hosted on the Generic Insurance Framework (GIF) include flight delay insurance, crop insurance, social security, and hurricane protection. Through its social innovation arm, Etherisc Impact, the company recently enrolled 17,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya in its parametric crop insurance product, which provides protection to traditionally underserved communities against weather events. extremes caused by climate change.

In addition to the framework, the offering includes the “Decentralized Insurance Platform” (DIP). The ecosystem for both includes product developers, risk pool operators, resellers, adjusters, intermediaries and insurers.

The Interchain/Cosmos Foundation

Before the “Cosmos” network, blockchains were isolated and could not communicate with each other. They were difficult to create and could only handle a small number of transactions per second. But Cosmos wants to build an “Internet of Blockchains,” as Sam Hart, grantee engineer at the Interchain Foundation, a Swiss foundation that funds and pushes the boundaries of blockchain infrastructure, describes the company’s goal.

At ICF, Sam is responsible for managing some of the most fundamental infrastructure for blockchain ecosystems. The Berlin-based artist, scientist and developer leads research in the field of decentralized social technologies through his work at Other Internet and Guild. However, it focuses on an interoperable, sustainable, and scalable blockchain ecosystem.

Soft Mint BFT

Strictly speaking, Cosmos is a decentralized network of independent parallel blockchains, each powered by consensus algorithms such as the “Tendermint” consensus. In turn, Tendermint BFT is software that encapsulates the network and consensus layers of a blockchain into a generic engine, allowing developers to focus on application development rather than the complex underlying protocol. According to the website, this can save Tendermint hundreds of development hours.

The Tendermint BFT engine is connected to the application via a socket protocol, the “Application Blockchain Interface”. This protocol can be packaged in any programming language.

Other features that make Tendermint BFT a state-of-the-art blockchain engine include:

If each blockchain in the network is connected to each other via direct IBC connections, the number of connections in the network increases quadratically with the number of blockchains. If there are 100 blockchains in the network and each has to maintain an IBC connection between them, that's 4950 connections. It quickly gets out of hand. To solve this problem, Cosmos offers a modular architecture with two classes of blockchains.
If each blockchain in the network is connected to each other via direct IBC connections, the number of connections in the network increases quadratically with the number of blockchains. If there are 100 blockchains in the network and each has to maintain an IBC connection between them, that’s 4950 connections. It quickly gets out of hand. To solve this problem, Cosmos offers a modular architecture with two classes of blockchains.

(Image: Interchain Foundation/Cosmos)

Application for public or private blockchains: Tendermint BFT only cares about networking and consensus for a blockchain; it helps nodes propagate transactions and validators agree on a set of transactions to attach to the blockchain. It is up to the application layer to define how it is constituted. Developers can therefore create public and private blockchains on top of the Tendermint BFT engine.
For example, if the application specifies that only a limited set of pre-authorized entities can act as validators, then the blockchain can be characterized as authorized or private. Developers have complete freedom to customize the rules that govern how their blockchain’s validator set changes.

High performance: Tendermint BFT can have a blocking time on the order of 1 second and can process up to thousands of transactions per second.

Immediate purpose: A property of the Tendermint consensus algorithm is instantaneous finality. This means that as long as more than a third of the validators are honest (Byzantine), they will never be forked. Users can rest assured that their transactions are complete once a block is created (which is not the case with proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum).

Safety: The Tendermint Consensus is not only forgiving, but also responsible. When the blockchain forks, there is a way to determine responsibility.

A development tool and the inter-blockchain communication protocol (IBC) are offered.

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