What’s Next For sōshen? Open Source, Of Course

Blockchain development doesn’t have to be like this and, together, we can do better.

During my term as a research fellow at dLab, my primary goal has been to advance the development of useful and, therefore, valuable blockchain apps — with the hope that it would lead to increased blockchain adoption by the broader population. To achieve that, my co-fellow (Eko) and I took the quantitative route and created solutions aimed at making blockchain development for non-blockchain developers more accessible, productive, and enjoyable. Our hypothesis was that onboarding more developers from outside of the space would lead to a more diverse set of apps and services being built, faster.

However, there’s one thing that we should have done sooner to accomplish the aforementioned goal…

Open-Sourcing sōshen

In case you’re not already familiar with our work, we built sōshen, a blockchain API provider that enables developers to interact with blockchains using communication protocols (HTTP and WS) that they’re likely already comfortable and familiar with. Our colleagues at dLab, who witnessed our efforts first-hand, knew that we invested our blood, sweat, and sleep (highly not recommended to anyone), in order to develop and ship sōshen before the first cohort ended.

I know I’m reposting this but I cannot find a more accurate “before and after dLab” photo of Eko and me

And, today, I’d like to invite everyone in the space to share in the fruits of our efforts by open-sourcing sōshen’s mission-critical components:

GitHub code repository: https://GitHub.com/kphed/soshen-oss

Most of the incredible innovation in the blockchain ecosystem has only been possible due to the collective efforts of the community, and we firmly believe that what we’ve done here with sōshen can only go further by adhering to that belief.

Not Our Destination, Just A Rest Stop

As my dLab fellowship term is coming to an end, I would also like to share that, after today, sōshen will no longer be operated as a company — this specific construct should be operated openly and freely by the community, to the benefit of the entire blockchain ecosystem. And, the incredible developers who took a leap of faith and signed up during our beta period will each be refunded in full because we want to remain true to that belief.

Our journey in this space is far from over. We’re just pulling over for a bit of rest :)

With that said, Eko and I look forward to continuing to engage with developers who are extending our work in different ways, as well as actively contributing new and different tools to the blockchain space. As my friend Kyler likes to say, “This isn’t ‘farewell’, it’s ‘see you soon’.” — and we’re certainly not leaving any time soon now that sōshen is out there in the aether.

Thank You, Sincerely

Again, to the person reading this, Eko and I would like to thank you for having traveled alongside us on our journey; it’s been an amazing one, to say the least, due to the lifetime’s worth of lessons we’ve learned and the lifelong connections we’ve met along the way. I’d also like to extend our gratitude to the individuals below who made this adventure possible.

Just a few of the exceptional people that I had the pleasure of meeting at dLab

SOSV: Nick Plante, Paul Saint-Donat, Shawn Broderick, Isabella Fantini, Paul Monahan, Donnacha Murphy, Frank Yu, Alicia Noel, Jeff Silva, and Jennifer Wolfe

EMURGO: Nicolas Arqueros, Sebastien Guillemot, Ruslan Dudin, Roberto Morano, Florian Bohnert, Keisha DePaz, Albert Kim, and Venus Lam

I’m truly sorry if we’ve missed anyone. If you’re not in the list above, know that you still have our sincerest appreciation.

Until next time! See you soon,
Khoa Phan and Eko Mirhard