The Scatter Way — wallets, SDKs, and trust on blockchain networks
Part 2 of an on-going explanatory series on Scatter technologies
Following the EOS and Scatter basics article we published a few weeks ago, we felt that it was important to continue by giving you a higher level overview of how Scatter’s technologies enable powerful modern smart contract systems like EOS, Ethereum, and Tron to create new economies and business models.
Scatter is many things
Before we start, it should be made clear that Scatter is really three core technologies that work together to create a cohesive and secure system.
- Scatter Wallet —this is what a user uses to manage his keys and safely sign transactions. It is currently available for Desktop on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Scatter Mobile is in development and will be available this summer. There are currently 15 other wallets that support Scatter protocols. If you are using EOS, chances are that you are using Scatter technologies.
- Scatter SDKs — this is what a software developer uses inside their app so that they can easily connect to smart contracts on the EOS blockchain and to the Scatter Wallet. There are multiple flavors of SDKs: Scatter-js, Scatter-sharp, and eos-sharp. The latter two are mainly used in Unity for connecting games to the EOS blockchain.
- RIDL — the Reputation and Identity Layer which serves as a service that Scatter uses to identify who is trustworthy and who is not. We’ll cover RIDL more in a bit.
Together, these provide a way for apps and users to safely interact with blockchains like EOS, Ethereum, and Tron.
Scatter allows users to trust that the interactions they have on those blockchains are safe.
We as a community have to face that we have a big trust problem
In 2018, over $1B in blockchain funds were lost to a multitude of different attack types including fraud, exit scams, phishing, and outright theft.
If we want to make the jump from the around 40M wallets in use today to the next order of magnitude of 400M wallets we need to address this trust problem.
The core issue is really that nobody knows who they are really interacting with when they sign a transaction. It is the wild west and that is scary for users.
They are right to be scared because traditionally we expect them to know what they are supposed to do in a totally new environment. That is untenable.
If we want real adoption it is up to us to tell our fellow users what is safe and what is not. RIDL is a decentralized way to do that.
RIDL is what makes Scatter special
What really makes Scatter special is the RIDL network. It is a reputation and identity layer that Scatter uses to ensure that the party you are interacting with is trustworthy.
The way that this works is that each entity has a unique score which is registered on the RIDL network. Users give entities scores and there is no central authority who controls the narrative. This is decentralization at its finest.
Some examples of RIDL use-cases are
- If you’ve had a good experience with a game, you can tell everyone that that game is trustworthy.
- If you’ve had a bad experience with an exchange, you can make sure that nobody else does.
- If you’ve had a great experience working with a freelancer, you can let others know so they can work with them too.
We have incentivized the use of RIDL because we know that getting data into the system is our biggest hurdle.
Users who are the first to “repute” an entity become “miners” of that entity and will earn RIDL tokens in return for their effort. We want you guys to go out there and convert those RIDL tokens you’ve been HODLing for the last 8 months into a system that works for your financial benefit and also makes our networks safer at the same time.
Building on top of the Scatter system
We now have a system where developers can easily connect their applications to blockchain networks, users can safely manage their assets, and together we can keep everyone safe with RIDL.
In the next article we’ll tell you a bit about where we think blockchain technologies are going, and why we are building the Scatter Marketplace on top of the foundational pieces that are outlined above.
— Rami James | Telegram: https://t.me/Scatter | Website: https://get-scatter.com
Scatter is a blockchain application signature provider. We provide high quality tools for developers and users.
