PCHAIN (PCH) ICO REVIEW

PCHAIN (PCH) ICO REVIEW

“The first native multichain system that supports Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in the world. Making large-scale blockchain applications. “

DETAILS:
-Ticker: PCH
-Token type: ERC20
-Fundraising Goal: $25 000 000 USD
-Total tokens: 2 100 000 000
-Circulating tokens: 735 000 000
-Available for Token Sale: 35%
-Website: https://pchain.org/
-Whitepaper: https://pchain.org/js/generic/web/viewer.html

OVERVIEW:
PCHAIN is a new system with native support for multi-chain applications, making large-scale blockchain applications possible. They’re looking to be the next generation scalable, interoperable and sharding solution. This is like a fusion of Aion and Zilliqa with the addition of sidechains! Sounds very ambitious.

The use of sidechains is becoming more popular. Well known projects that use this mechanism are Lisk, Ardor, and Rootstock. Sidechaining is any mechanism that allows tokens from one blockchain to be securely used within a completely separate blockchain but still moved back to the original chain if necessary. The original chain is normally referred to as the “main chain”, while any additional blockchains which allow users to transact within them in the tokens of the main chain are referred to as “sidechains”. Congesting of the main chain will be prevented and this will allow for greater scalability and faster transaction time.

PCHAIN wants to provide the first multichain solution to be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). EVM is the software infrastructure that underpins the Ethereum smart contracts. So instead of acting as a single sidechain, the PCHAIN solution consists of multiple side chains. This will allow PCHAIN to scale at a level that other blockchains cannot compete with.

In this figure, you see the PCHAIN Main Chain running and at the same time, you’ve got parallel transactions processing.

Another technique that PCHAIN will be implementing is sharding. This is a well-known technique used by Zilliqa and will be implemented in Ethereum (Casper), which currently is still in development. Sharding will allow nodes and transactions to be divided into smaller groups, meaning more transactions can be validated at once, and nodes only need to store certain segments of the blockchain.

At last, PCHAIN is not only solving scalability issues but also issues of interoperability. It’s offering cross chain functionality to a wide array of public blockchains . They’re providing complete interoperability solutions like Polkadot and Aion. This might be the interoperability project that China has been waiting for.

TEAM:
The team is led by Dr. Feng (Jeff) Cao, a man with lots of experience in the China blockchain sector. He is the inventor of the 1st International Blockchain patent from China and also the Co-Founder of ChinaLedger, the most influential blockchain alliance of China. Furthermore, he has 22 papers in ACM/IEE and holds 30+ international patents. This is an all-star without any doubt.

The team beneath Dr.Feng are very capable as well. Members include:
-Master of Computer Science, former SAP, produced over 300k code lines.
-Senior software engineer and expert of core blockchain technologies.
-Professor of Computer of Science
-Ex-Chief Scientist of Internet Finance and co-chair of the patent review board in IBM Research China.

PARTNERS:
The list of partners is huge, keeping in mind that the ICO hasn’t even started yet. Partners include Chinaledger, Harvard innovation lab, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and The University of Queensland.
Chinaledger is basically China’s leading open source blockchain for the financial sector. Chinaledger is also partnering with the Chinese government on multiple blockchain projects, this gives PCHAIN the opportunity to forge important government partnerships in the future.

Another notable partnership is the one with the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP). The main missions of CFLP are to push the development of logistics industry in China, to boost the development of procurement business of the government and enterprises, to assume the tasks commissioned by the government. This again will give PCHAIN ties with the government.

COMPETITION:
China’s blockchain industry is booming right now, with so many new projects popping up left and right. Just to name a few Chinese projects with massive potential: Matrix, Sharder (this one is a hidden gem), Internet Node token and Elastos.
With so many partnerships and ties in China, the first competitor that comes to mind is NEO obviously. NEO is much further ahead in terms of development and user base. However, the blockchain industry is still in its infancy and with PCHAIN’s sharding, scaling and interoperability solutions, the battle hasn’t been won yet. Keeping in mind that the low market capitalization will give PCHAIN a lot of room to grow.

ROADMAP:
-March 2018: PCHAIN Position Paper Completed
-October 2018 (7 months): Complete the development of PCHAIN core system which supports account system and deployment of smart contract, publish technical white paper. Testnet of mainchain online.
-March 2019 (12 months): Publish the product on the major network. Completion of external API and wiki (interoperability).
-June 2019 (15 months): Expand the capabilities of knowledge graph and Data Blockchain and support external development interfaces.
-September 2019 (18 months): Introduce several blockchain application projects to form the Knowledge Graph Blockchain Alliance.

SELLING POINTS
-A solid team with an experienced background led by an all-star leader.
-Interoperability, Scaling, and Sharding in one project.
-Strong partnerships with ties to the government (no need for advisors, when you already have these kinds of partners).
-A low hard cap of $25 million USD (compared to projects with the same scope).

CONCERNS
-No prototype (Github activity is non-existent), at least 6 months away from the testnet.
-No hype in the west (yet). This isn’t a bad thing perse, this could be the gem that is overlooked by many. Keep in mind, we are still in a bear market so the interest for ICO’s is lower than usual. However, I do expect the hype to increase when we are nearing the ICO.
-Cryptocurrencies are still banned in China, so the future is still very grey.

CONCLUSION
This sounds like a very interesting project to watch. If they can pull this off then PCHAIN will be a huge player in the blockchain atmosphere.

Review written by my friends of Token Research Group, please follow them on: https://medium.com/@tnhtnn7/pchain-pch-ico-review-b6317d2a4528
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tnhtnn