[Hong Kong SAR , July 31, 2020] — The founding partners of the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), a major blockchain interoperability infrastructure network, have officially announced their decision to separate the governance of the BSN into two ecosystems; BSN China and BSN International. The main motivation is to allow the overall BSN Network to interoperate more freely with public/permissionless blockchain frameworks while being in better compliance with the relevant blockchain regulations and laws around the world, notably in China. This decision will facilitate the global adoption of the BSN as a universal blockchain interoperability infrastructure connecting to all of the world’s major public/permissionless and private/permissioned blockchain frameworks.
Each country has laws and regulations to govern the deployment and use of the Internet and blockchain technology, notably including privacy, security, and data localization rules. Therefore, the BSN implementation and operations in each country or region will need to comply with the local laws and regulations. In China, the deployment of public/permissionless blockchain networks faces regulatory obstacles. Since the BSN is meant to be a global interoperability network, it must comply with these rules in China, but also be flexible enough to accommodate other blockchain ecosystems such as public/permissionless chains internationally.
The solution is to have an independent governing body formed to shepherd the development of the BSN internationally that is completely separated from the governance of the BSN in China. It is important to note however, that while the governance has been decoupled, the BSN is still a unified global network with complete interoperability between BSN International and BSN China. BSN China will still be governed by the original BSN Consortium Committee formed by all four founding partners, with overall oversight from the State Information Center (the China central government body responsible for IT strategy and regulation) to be compliant to all relevant local Chinese government regulations and policies. Henceforth, Red Date Technology will be solely responsible for BSN International’s technology roadmap, implementation, deployment strategy, and governance.
BSN International will be forming a new foundation governed by an independent council with participation from international organizations representing the global blockchain ecosystem. In order to ensure transparency and implement best practices for privacy and security, the eventual strategy is to open-source the infrastructure so that BSN International can get broader participation and make the BSN network a world-class trusted standard for blockchain interoperability. BSN International is now in the process of forming committees on technology roadmap, interoperability, cybersecurity, privacy and trust, intellectual property, governance, and legal/regulatory compliance.
The BSN is part of China’s National Blockchain Strategy which was announced by President Xi Jinping in October 2019. The original goal is the creation of a foundational infrastructure to allow different blockchain and IT frameworks to interoperate in a seamless and unified way. Essentially, the BSN represents an interoperability standard that allows different heterogenous IT and datacenter ecosystems to interoperate. The BSN infrastructure provides the ability to easily create portable applications (called dApps) that can interoperate between different blockchain ecosystems. Thus, the BSN is a cross-cloud, cross-portal, and cross-chain global public infrastructure used to deploy and operate all types of blockchain dApps regardless of their infrastructure or framework choices. The blockchain interoperability network is vertically integrated on top of a multi-cloud infrastructure that can increase flexibility, improve uptime, reduce cost, and create unparalleled resilience for dApps.
The BSN was jointly initiated by four founding partners, namely the China State Information Center, China Mobile, China UnionPay and Red Date Technology. Red Date Technology created the architecture for the BSN and is responsible for the deployment, R&D roadmap, and operation of the overall BSN infrastructure both for China as well as globally. Since its launch on April 25, 2020, the BSN has attracted considerable interest from around the world. This was a watershed moment for the global adoption of blockchain by institutions and enterprises. Given the strong adoption in China, the BSN has already become one of the largest and fastest growing blockchain ecosystems globally. The BSN is catalyzing significant blockchain development efforts across China, with cities such as the Beijing recently announcing their plans to develop a blockchain-enabled city government across 12 use cases.
The BSN has already integrated most of the top permissioned blockchain frameworks in China, as well as recently announcing half a dozen public chains integrations. Cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Drive, Microsoft Azure, all telecommunication carriers in China and Baidu Cloud are also integrated to be able to provide ultra-low cost blockchain cloud services. The BSN currently has global deployment of over 130 public city nodes, covering all provinces and major cities in China as well as international nodes distributed across six continents. The BSN is slated to have over 200 nodes in major cities across China alone by the end of this year. With the formation of BSN International, the BSN will also serve as the next-generation Blockchain Internet backbone for a global trust network that will connect the world and facilitate global trade, foster collaboration, and enable the future of digital assets.
Red Date Technology openly invites any technology, legal, regulatory, and governance experts around the world to join and participate in BSN International’s committees. In the near future, Red Date Technology will initiate a series of press conferences in different regions of the world to address any questions regarding the governance and deployment strategy for BSN International.
For any inquiries, please contact BSN-International@reddatetech.com
