EW Origin Release Notes: March 2020
Our latest release was a significant one, and it brought upgrades to basically every component of the Origin SDK. March is our first of many smaller but more-frequent releases. In this edition, we’re adding a few new features, and showing first outlines of our transition to a spot market for trading.
New token structure
Origin Release C is the last release where we support our (old) ERC-721-based token structure. Our new token structure is conforming to ERC-1888. There are a couple of things to note here. When we say a new token structure, we mainly think about a smart contract that we call an issuer. The issuer contract has functions for requesting, minting, transferring, and finally claiming certificates.
In the ERC-721-based token structure, we had a simple data structure where each token represented a volume of energy generated by a specific device in a certain timeframe. This design was intuitive and straightforward, but it came with certain restrictions. Our new token structure based on ERC-1888 is providing the same functionality but with a more thoughtful design that is generic enough to accommodate the needs of multiple standards, but at the same time includes an interface enabling interoperability between various systems.
If you’re interested in learning more, we prepared a two-part deep dive that takes a closer look at our new issuer contract, together with info on how we tackled privacy concerns.
Localization
Our goal with Origin SDK is to create an open-source framework that can be used to kickstart the development of platforms around traceability use cases in the energy sector. That’s why we often encourage people to quickly spin up a demo setup and try to see if Origin would fit their use case. This often leads us to a question of adjusting copy or language. To make it easier on everyone, we’re moving all strings to the localization package.
Now adding support for a second language is easy. As you can see in our repo, Daniel Kmak already created a (sample) support for Polish. There’s also a wiki page on our Github with steps on how to add support for additional languages. In case you do do it, we would love for you to give back some love and create a pull request with new language support.
Document-based evidence
This is a minor change but could be relevant as it applies to multiple standards. In some cases, the issuer requires a third party to assist in the verification process. That’s why we’ve added support for uploading documents along with the request for energy certification. Documents are stored in the backend, and the issuer can see them as part of the verification process.
From marketplace to exchange
As we announced in Release C, we’re transitioning from marketplace-style trading to a spot-market exchange. This transition is under way from both the backend and frontend perspectives. We expect to have the first version ready in April. Expect more info in the next posts, and ‘till then, you can follow the progress by checking out the exchange package on GitHub.
Find it useful? Want to follow along and hear about future updates to Origin SDK? There are two simple ways to do so. First, you should follow us on Medium! We’re issuing updates monthly with info on new features and the current status of upcoming ones. Secondly, if you’re a developer interested in Origin, you can follow all our architecture/product decisions on our GitHub. We’re adopting ADR as a way to document and signal any architectural changes.
