Open Source Developer Platform Available From Chain

Chain, a provider of blockchain technology solutions, recently released Chain Core Developer Edition, a free and open source version of its distributed ledger platform that enables organizations to issue and transfer assets on permissioned blockchain networks. Developers now have the opportunity to download and install Chain Core to start or join a blockchain network, build financial applications, and access in-depth technical documentation and tutorials. Users have the option to run their prototypes on a test network, or ‘testnet’, operated by Chain, Microsoft, and the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts — a collaboration of Cornell University, Cornell Tech, UC Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Technion.

Chain Core Developer Edition is the product of a multi-year effort between Chain and major financial firms to build blockchain architecture that maps to the use cases of the financial industry. Chain Core Enterprise Edition, the company’s production platform, is already being leveraged to launch products by market leaders in the payments, banking, capital markets, and insurance sectors.

Ryan Smith, CTO of Chain, stated: “We are thrilled to give developers everywhere open access to Chain’s platform. Chain Core Developer Edition provides a seamless end-to-end experience to design, build, and test prototypes on a system we created from the ground up to suit the scalability and security requirements of the financial industry.”

Principal Architect PM and Azure Blockchain Engineering at Microsoft, Marley Gray remarked: “Microsoft believes the potential for blockchain technology to digitally transform the financial industry is enormous. We are pleased to support the operation of the Chain testnet on Microsoft Azure Blockchain as a Service and look forward to collaborating with the ecosystem to enable financial institutions to adopt distributed ledger technology.”

Chain Core Developer Edition comes with a Java SDK, code samples and getting started guides, as well as installers and a dashboard interface for Windows, Mac, and Linux. In addition, Chain has also published the complete technical specification of the Chain Protocol (formerly known as the Chain Open Standard) as well as a summary whitepaper. The Chain Protocol is the underlying cryptographic protocol, authored and maintained by Chain, that defines the data model, validation rules, and consensus mechanism implemented in Chain Core.

Professor Andrew Miller, an Associate Director of IC3 and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said: “We are delighted to be one of the operators of the Chain test environment. We have collaborated with Chain on protocol design and encourage their approach to helping developers build secure blockchain applications.”