OST Project Update | June 2018
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Tech, Ethereum

Product updates

OpenST Protocol

The OpenST protocol is the foundation of the OST project and it also defines our vision: To be the essential technology fabric that enables the decentralized web. The OpenST protocol facilitates the creation of Branded Tokens on open scalable side blockchains, enabling mainstream brands to have their own crypto-backed token economies with Internet-grade transaction volumes. Specifically, the protocol allows for the staking of OST on the value chain, Ethereum, and the minting of ERC20 tokens of equivalent value on OpenST sidechains.

As a reminder, here’s a brief history of the work we did on the OpenST protocol:

v0.9.1 introduced session key management , proof of stake validators , and specifications for open validation and OpenST block rewards.

introduced session , , and specifications for v0.9.2 improved usability to facilitate application by the OpenST-Platform and other services. Additionally, it increased test coverage , with additional unit and integration tests, and added continuous integration with Travis CI .

improved and other services. Additionally, it , with additional unit and integration tests, and added . v0.9.3 marked the introduction of OpenST Mosaic , which will essentially improve the speed and functionality of the OpenST protocol by cutting the processing time of transactions on par with internet-grade transaction volumes . You’ll find more on our recent work on OpenST Mosaic below.

, which will essentially improve the speed and functionality of the OpenST protocol by . You’ll find more on our recent work on OpenST Mosaic below. v0.9.4 will focus on improving end-user experience, a crucial element to support mass adoption of cryptocurrency and tokenized economies. To handle key management for users and for application developers cleanly, OpenST 0.9.4 will introduce token holder smart contracts for end-users. Branded Tokens will be minted into, and owned by, each end-users’ token holder contract. Every end-user will be the owner of the contract, and the owner of their Branded Tokens.

With OpenST Mosaic we enable economic finality of transactions on OpenST utility blockchains (with Proof of Stake). This is a cornerstone technology for OpenST that contributes back to the Ethereum ecosystem with a new tool to scale and compute more efficiently on Ethereum mainnet. OpenST Mosaic rewards a decentralized network of sealers with transaction fees (in $OST tokens) for securing Branded Token transfers and transactions on the OpenST utility chains. Sealing represents the consensus algorithm for a blockchain.

For OpenST 0.9.3, and in preparation of v0.9.4, our goal was to use internal Proofs of Concept (POCs) for OpenST Mosaic to validate our design and specifications for this approach to securing value staked in one blockchain for its utility representation in a separate blockchain:

Proof POC

The Proof POC was designed to validate Ethereum’s “Patricia trie proofs” in smart contracts which is a technical part that goes into finalizing the OpenST protocol. We want to take a moment to express our gratitude for the many open-source projects out there for generating, verifying and parsing Merkle Patricia proofs, which allowed us to complete this POC much faster than if we were to do it all by ourselves!

Using the data from the Proof POC, the OpenST protocol contracts are being refactored and restructured to ease the burden of providing and confirming such proofs.

Game POC

The Game POC forms the foundation for OpenST Mosaic to interact with OpenST and was designed to test the OpenST Mosaic incentive games hypothesis. Findings will be integrated into existing protocol smart contracts for both the value and utility chains.

Gateway POC

The Gateway POC was designed to prepare the OpenST implementation for protocol upgrade capabilities in OpenST 0.9.4 by further decentralizing its staking and minting capacities. This POC has been completed but still needs further testing which we are currently working on. We are incorporating the work of the Gateway POC into the protocol, improving the robustness of the code, and adding more test cases. We will use the findings from the Gateway POC to stake value through Gateway contracts, rather than directly with the protocol contract.

In this new structure, the Gateway contract for a Branded Token will serve the role of staking account, rather than an external account. This adjustment to the architecture splits staking for a branded token into request stake and accept or reject request functions in the Gateway contract; this extends the ability to stake to any account that meets policy objectives that can be administered off-chain (e.g. KYC validations) without extending access to the private key for the branded token’s staking account.

Whereas implementing the work and findings of the Proof and Gateway POCs represents the logical completion of the OpenST Protocol, completion of the Game POC leading to Mosaic will enable us to achieve our decentralization vision by decreasing our role as the central trust authority

Outside of our POC completion, we have brought our contracts in line with Solidity v0.4.23 which brings, among other enhancements, the ability to provide a “reason” when a transaction fails; this will not only help testing, but also may eventually be useful for debugging at runtime.

Certain protocol functions have been updated to employ hashlocks, which increases the autonomy of protocol participants and will support improvement of KIT operations, by making it so that the accounts that initiate and complete certain processes do not necessarily need to be the same or identified.

OST KIT Releases

All the OST KIT API’s developed thus far are now fully available with solutions coded in PHP and Java, thanks to our latest SDK updates. Here are the Github repositories for both SDKs

OST KIT PHP SDK: https://github.com/OpenSTFoundation/ost-sdk-php/tree/V1.0.0

OST KIT Java SDK: https://github.com/OpenSTFoundation/ost-sdk-java/tree/v1.0.0

As a quick reminder, our Developer portal is also a helpful resource to get started with the PHP and Java SDKs and contains our official Quick Start Guides for both.

OST KYC

We worked hard to make sure our Know Your Customer / Anti Money Laundering solution was fully compliant with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) since the regulation went into effect on

May 25th this year. End-users who shared their personal data with companies using OST KYC will have the option to request the deletion of their personal data.

To optimize the workings of our solution, we have been working on refactoring the code base, marking the release of OST KYC 1.2.

As announced in last month’s update, we developed ways for OST KYC to use facial recognition and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to verify identity details with the data submitted by users. We are pleased to announce that both recognition features will be released by the end of June 2018.

Update 11 July: Release of both recognition features got moved to July 2018.

It’s worth mentioning that it’s always been the plan for OST KYC to become an integral part of OST KIT rather than a standalone product. This will help our Partner Companies to build tokenized economies that are fully compliant with financial regulations.

OST Wallets

One of the important problems to solve in bringing blockchain technology to mainstream consumers is enabling simpler and more consumer-friendly wallets. As OST enables projects like Unsplash and LGBT Token to issue their own branded tokens on side blockchains, we need to develop wallets that can hold branded tokens within our partner companies’ apps as well as across OST-powered branded token economies.

We are thus working on two versions of wallets:

A white-labeled wallet that can be embedded within our partner companies’ apps and services. e.g. the Unsplash wallet. A standalone OST Wallet that can hold branded tokens and OST and other crypto currencies.

First, we are working on the embedded wallet, to enable end-users of our partner companies’ apps to better view and understand their token balances and transactions within the tokenized economies of our Partner Companies.

This is enabled by the Balance and Transaction Ledger APIs, which are currently under development

The Balance API, a lightweight version of the current Users API, allows OST Partner Companies to embed a simplified, current token balance overview for its end-users.

The Transaction Ledger API provides our Partner Companies with ways to integrate a transaction overview dashboard for its end-users.

We aim to release these APIs in early July, as the major new features for the OST KIT Alpha III challenge. This will enable OST KIT Alpha III development teams to design and integrate branded token wallets into their solutions.

We’ll then turn to OST Wallet, a standalone wallet for transacting within and across OST-powered Branded Token economies. OST Wallet will also enable end-users to move their earned tokens to another wallet, or to exchange them for OST and eventually Ether or any other tradeable asset. Application sessions can be authorized and revoked from the wallet, and all interactions are securely managed by end-users’ token holder smart contract.