There was a big announcement for Hive yesterday.
The former team of Steemit Inc, decided to partner with the team from OpenSeed to work together on open source solutions that can be implemented into Hive based applications. Ultimately, the goal is to expand these solutions to other blockchains to offer interoperability between them.
Michael Vandeberg (@vandeberg), Nathaniel Caldwell, Steve Gerbino (@gerbino) and @theoretical are joining the existing team that includes @andrarchy and @bflanagin.
The focus is going to be on providing solutions that a blockchain like Hive does not provide.
Here is how the announcement summed up the problem:
No blockchain is capable of supporting media storage, real-time operations or ephemeral communications at scale. This has left many blockchain-powered applications lacking in basic functionalities like fast, easy, and free account creation, easy login, and encrypted messaging.
Certainly, we have seen issues in these areas as they were discussed repeatedly throughout the years. Naturally, they were not exclusive to Steem, nor are they to Hive. This is something that most blockchain ecosystems are dealing with.
Hence we are looking at the development of Koinos.
This is the second layer that will be created to compliment the features provided by the Hive blockchain. As we saw, Layer 2 solutions provide a great deal of flexibility while tapping into the blockhain via operations such as custom JSON.
According to the article, one of the main areas of focus is going to be gaming. The key is to allow them to seamlessly integrate digital tokens and assets into their games.
Here is the full announcement:
@openorchard/announcing-openorchard-and-koinos
This is a very important step in the development of the infrastructure. One of the major drawbacks to what is taking place is the fact that all development is basically starting from scratch. For example, if an application developer wants to put a messenger in the application, he or she has to design it. There is no plug in that is tied to blockchain for this. Obviously, the blockchain itself does not offer it so it is up to individual apps to provide what they need.
By providing a Layer 2 solution with different open source features available, the applications can easily integrate with what is out there to provide the functionality to their users.
For example, OpenSeed, once it is out, can be picked up by any of the Hive based applications and integrated in. Thus, messenger services could be available on Actifit, 3Speak, PeakD, and any other app.
Another advantage is that the users interactions go to each application. We all know how Google Hangouts differs from Facebook Messenger in terms of the "friends" we have on each. Under this scenario, the interactions will be accessible regardless of the interface it is integrated with.
There is another vital piece to this which was mentioned in the past. The ability to scale the sign up process is crucial. We know this is another challenge in the world of blockchain.
The solution is to offer what essentially becomes a tiered system. Since not everyone requires blockchain, it is best to filter out those who do from those who do not. What this means is that individuals can get a user name and password through OpenOrchard but it will not provide access to Hive. Most individuals tend to sign up for things but not be very active.
This is a way to cull through the users. For those who do get active with a particular feature, they can be offered a Hive account. Since they showed the desire to interact, this will bring individuals who are looking to use the applications instead of the proverbial tire-kickers.
Hopefully, we start to see some of the applications start to hit the market. The article did mention that OpenSeed would be heading to beta testing soon.
As always, many good things happening on Hive.
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