Problem Statement

Trust. An invisible but invaluable component of any interaction in the digital age. Trust is scarce in a market rife with bad actors, and has remained scarce until the dawn of blockchain technology. The blockchain has shaped the way modern society looks at trust. Blockchain technology has effectively cut out the middleman to create a “trustless” environment where every action can be verified and are tamper proof.

The Ethereum blockchain popularised the concept of smart contracts, which are tamper proof code that will produce the same results, provided the inputs remain the same. Smart contracts allowed for the creation of ERC20 tokens, ERC721 NFTs and other forms of virtual assets. These allowed for creation of markets that facilitate the buying and selling of these assets, essentially creating liquidity for assets that might have been illiquid initially.

The power of the blockchain extends beyond just virtual assets. The blockchain can also be used for tracking goods. Counterfeits and frauds plague the market for every good imaginable. Blockchain technology can help prove the provenance of an item and verifying that the item received by the buyer is real. This use case can be extended to, for example, a farm fish. Every stage of the fish’s life cycle, from the farm, to storage, to transportation, to the retailer and to the dining table can all be recorded. Customers who are able to verify the legitimacy of the product they are buying will be more willing to purchase said product.

The blockchain might be able to solve these problems, but many chains that are available are not built for enterprise grade applications. A good amount of them are experimental and do not use proven technologies, and might present problems that blindside its users until it is too late. Some chains adopt lax governance, while some are too restrictive in their policy making. Chains live and die by their developers, and developers might introduce controversial features that degrade the experience for some of its users, creating a schism between the users and developers. Some might be too dependent on the community and suffer a lack of leadership, which causes an immense slowdown on progress.

Interoperability is an afterthought in many chains of the past. With interoperability taking centre stage now, barely working solutions are haphazardly created to tick the checkbox. This creates considerable slowdown for the transfer of liquidity between chains.

For many blockchains, tools are scarce, quickly outdated and exist with poor documentation and support. These tools are built and maintained by community members, which creates an environment where the abandonment risk is high once the incentive runs out for the community members.

Beyond the technology, there is still the question of reputation and regulatory compliance. Public chains are unfortunately tainted with scams, money laundering, pump and dump schemes, and many more unlawful activities. These activities are part of the reasons why corporations and governments are reluctant to utilise existing public blockchain systems.

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