Wanchain is working towards making the blockchain community more inter-connected. It aims to rebuild the financial infrastructure on the blockchain, for which it has introduced cross-chain smart contracts on the platform. It believes that though there are innumerable coins and blockchains on the ecosystem now (ranging from the old Bitcoin to newly introduced small coins), but they remain isolated. Currently, there is no decentralised way to link them, to exchange values between them.
The project proposes the solution as an independent blockchain, providing a platform to the blockchain community to exchange these virtual assets on it. Moreover, the platform is not merely for token transfers. Wanchain will also allow its users to build a number of financial applications. It has introduced a strong software infrastructure and exceptional features for that. Smart contracts, privacy protection protocols and the native Wanchain token (WAN) are some of them.
Vision for Finance
The founders of the company believe that the crypto economy is expanding exponentially, and in near future, it will become “the economy”. Financial services have especially been quicker to adopt this technology. From borrowing to saving to insurance, blockchain and smart contracts have integrated finance with Blockchain. So the impact on financial services is going to be profound.
However, today’s digital assets and services sit segregated, and Wanchain is trying to fill this gap. It enables banking applications to be connected and developed that guide their flows on-chain. This removes “centralized counterparty risks”. Using Wanchain, businesses and firms can create blockchain applications for – borrowing and lending, payments and settlements, transactions and exchanges, and investment and financing.
How does it work?
Though Wanchain aims to inter-connect blockchains via smart contracts, it is not built on Ethereum. Nor does it utilise ERC20 tokens, but WANs. It is an independent blockchain platform with many features.
Cross-chain Communication Protocol
It is the backbone of Wanchain. This allows data and asset transfers between Wanchain and other chains. The protocol has three functional modules. The registration module registers the originating transaction chain and its assets. The cross-chain transaction data transmission module sends requests for the transaction, confirms it and facilitates it upon confirmation. The transaction status query module monitors the status of the transaction.
Verification Node Consensus Algorithm
Wanchain will be utilising the famous Proof of Stake (PoS) instead of Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm. PoS utilises less electricity than PoW and is energy-saving. Also, it leads to actual decentralisation on the network, rather than concentration of power as on PoW.
There are three types of verification nodes on the network. They maintain the whole network and split transaction fees. Vouchers are cross-chain transaction proof nodes. Validators are general verification nodes. Storemen are the locked account management node.
Locked Account Generation Scheme
For multi-party holders of the account, Wanchain provides Locked Account Generation Scheme to secure funds and keys. It based upon SSSS (Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme), where the key to account is effectively broken into shares and distributed to all involved parties. However, if some validators are offline, the transaction can still be carried out with a minimum number of shares. So this system has various benefits.
Privacy and Token Transaction Anonymity
Wanchain is one of the first blockchain platforms to ensure that privacy is integrated within smart contracts. It utilises the famous “ring signature” that provides complete anonymity to traders and their transaction. Ring signature mixes sender’s signature with other fake signatures, which makes it difficult to trace the account.
It also has “One Time Addresses (OTA)” to provide complete anonymity to the receiver for every transaction. Since new addresses are generated for every new transaction, detecting and tracing their patterns becomes even more difficult.
Wanchain Token and ICO
WAN is the official token of Wanchain network. These tokens are used while transactions as transaction fees. Also, a certain amount of these WAN tokens need to be deposited while transacting, as security deposits to the cross-chain verification.
Till now, almost 51% (107.1 million) of the WAN coins have been sold. They were sold in an ICO and raised 120,000 ETH.
These funds will be utilised for research and development, community development, marketing and other activities.
Wanchain Team
Wanchain is based out of Singapore and is a non-profit organisation.
Wanchain was founded by Jack Lu. Jack Lu is a famous player in the blockchain space. Before he founded Wanchain, he co-founded Factor and started Wanglu Technology. Dustin Byington is the President of Wanchain. Before Wanchain, he founded Bitcoin Colege in 2014 and co-founded Tendermint the same year as well.
The team has recently launched its main net and roadmap planned for 2018. Their plans seem quite ambitious. The 2.0 release in June will include Ethereum cross-chain trading and multi-currency wallet. The 3.0 release will include Bitcoin as well.
The project by Wanchain to revolutionise the financial industry, as well as inter-connect blockchains, is very ambitious. However, there are many other competitors, with similar plans entering the market soon. But with many of its unique infrastructural features and an ambitious vision, the coin has a great future ahead.