Bitclave’s BASE is a platform that enables direct customer-to-business interaction with no need for intermediaries. BASE stands for Bitcale Active Search Ecosystem and as one can guess, Search is a key component of this system.
Bitclave is building a decentralized search solution based on blockchain technology. While blockchains allow for data storage, the main requirement for storage on chain is to provide open, secure, and distributed storage, effectively creating a publicly viewable, decentralized ledger of transactions. As a result, despite all of the security offered, blockchains natively are not as suitable for efficient search as solutions currently available today.
Understanding the “SE” in BASE
Before we dive into technical challenges with search using the blockchain, lets first clarify the role of Search Engine in BASE. The role of Search Engine in BASE is to provide a “recommendation” based on consumer interest (here being a customer-side attribution point which publishes a shopping preference, item of interest, or personal preference) and serve smart contract offers (retailers can publish short-term, customized offers for discounted items or services) identified as potential matches. The final decision to make a business transaction is made by the user and is facilitated by smart contracts on-chain. The role of the Search Agent can be compared to the role of realtor in real-estate business. The realtor will bring together a potential buyer and seller, but the final decision on business transaction is made by the individuals.
BASE-ic Implementation
To implement BASE, Bitclave assumes two roles:
- One role is to implement an open, decentralized platform that enables direct customer-to-business interaction with no need for intermediaries such as third-party advertising networks.
- The other is to provide on-boarding for all entities required to bring this platform to users. These entities include the Search Engine, Clients, Business apps, and more.
Remember, Bitclave’s goal is to build a platform with no intermediaries. It means Bitclave is committed to define an open platform, hence its implementation will use only information that is available to all. This transparency guarantees Bitclave itself is not playing the same role as the middlemen in advertising. In addition, Bitclave will provide its implementations for Search and other components as open source.
Bitclave, in the first capacity, will store anonymized information about customers, businesses, offered product/and services in a combination of on-chain storage and off-chain open, decentralized storage available to all.
In its second role, Bitclave will use off-chain entities to enable efficient search. These entities will include external servers that will retrieve information from open storage (in a readonly way) and will populate Bitclave’s databases that are optimized for search. When new search requests enter the blockchain, Bitclave’s Active Search Engine will use its database to find the matching offers and will communicate these offers to the smart contracts on blockchain. The final decision to make the transaction is done by smart contracts. Recall from above, Search Agent is just providing recommendations.
Open Source
This is the approach that BitClave is currently taking, as conceived by the developers and team leadership and based on the combined experience of marketing, advertising, blockchain, and security professionals. Nothing prevents any other interested party to implement a more efficient blockchain-based search engine. Thanks to its open-source nature, BASE will only benefit from alternative and better implementations of Searches Engines, and with continued engagement from BitClave’s users and partners, along with advances in blockchain technology, the recommendation engine will improve and enhance the performance of the entire ecosystem.
