Tencent, Huawei, WeBank and Shenzhen Securities Communication have come together to launch BCOS, a revolutionary blockchain solution billed to be the next “Ethereum killer”.
Collectively known as the Financial Blockchain Shenzhen Consortium (FISCO), the partnership, which is one of the largest blockchain consortiums in China which will, formally introduce BCOS to an international audience at the Singapore Fintech Festival between November 12 and 14.
FISCO BCOS Operational Particulars
The open-source platform will be coinless and open to the public much like the Ethereum-based Hyperledger Fabric protocol, which draws a line under the long argument of whether a consortium chain should be public or private. It is the first blockchain platform built specifically to meet the regulatory requirements and service demands of the financial industry.
According to the announcement, its optimized architecture greatly enhances transaction-handling capability. A single chain can handle over 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) with split-second confirmation. This addresses the demand for large transactional capapcity by financial institutions.
Upgraded architecture and localized optimization to the single chain make secure and efficient concurrent computation possible alongisde parallel expansion. This means that developers can easily build additional servers to satisfy specific business requirements without disrupting operations, which again is a key operational demand of large financial instutitions.
The announcement claims that via the combination of a Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) mechanism, multichain architecture, and cross-chain interactions, concurrent access problems and high frequency account limitations are resolved, effectively removing any hindrance to high frequency information exchange.
What this means in laymans terms is that different nodes on the blockchain can communicate safely, knowing they are always displaying the same data at the same time despite high information exchange volumes, which is understandably key to a finance operation.
Security and Regulatory Support
BCOS provides access node control and key management which help provide maximum security for hosting, networking, storage and application. It also supports functions that protect user privacy, including Zero-knowledge proof, group signature and ring signatures, which add an extra layer of anonymity to on-chain transactions.
Regulators and auditors can access and monitor the real-time data flow through observatory nodes. Multiple development interfaces also provide developers convenience in writing and transferring smart contracts.
Since the launch of BCOS, dozens of use cases have been developed, ranging from finance and arbitration to copyrights and recruitment. BCOS has facilitated innovative initiatives and ideas, including cross-consortium collaborations, Open Chain Ecosystem, and Distributed Business Model. In addition to private member initiatives, many public members have launched applications in supply chain, finance, tourism finance, copyright transaction, recruitment, and gaming since BCOS became open-source.
