Nethermind and Energy Web Announce Technology Partnership
Collaboration will support long-term network stability and further the decentralization of the Energy Web Chain
London, United Kingdom and Zug, Switzerland — 12 August 2020 — Today Nethermind and Energy Web (EW) jointly announced a new partnership that will make the Nethermind client compatible with the Energy Web Chain. The EW Chain is the world’s first public, enterprise-grade blockchain tailored to the energy sector. It is also one of the only blockchains in any sector where well-known companies run the network’s validator nodes. Roughly two-dozen companies — including Acciona, Elia Group, Engie, Mercados Eléctricos, PTT Group, and Stedin — host an EW Chain validator node.
The Nethermind client, an enterprise-friendly core Ethereum client, will run the AuRa consensus mechanism, a leading approach for proof-of-authority (PoA) blockchains like the Energy Web Chain. Under the EW Chain’s PoA approach, only permissioned nodes operated by known energy-sector companies may create, sign, and finalize blocks in a round-robin style. The addition of the Nethermind client now gives validators a second option, alongside the Parity client that has served the Energy Web Chain since its launch in June 2019. This will enhance the decentralized network’s overall performance and resilience.
“We are constantly working to further decentralize the public Energy Web infrastructure and strengthen its enterprise-grade features,” explained Micha Roon, chief technology officer for Energy Web. “This partnership with Nethermind — including their EW Chain-compatible client — is an exciting new development in the evolution.”
To meet the unique needs of hosting validator nodes in an enterprise IT environment, Nethermind will create customised documentation and tooling for Energy Web that will help future validators and network participants launch a node quickly and securely. In addition, Nethermind will also configure custom monitoring, alerting, and reporting systems to provide visibility and real-time analytics into validator operations. These tools and alerts ensure that any production issues or outages are quickly noticed and resolved, which is a crucial requirement for the EW Chain. The Nethermind client will also undergo a full security audit to identify any vulnerabilities and protect against network attacks. The Nethermind collaboration creates an opportunity for the large pool of existing .NET developers to simplify integrations between existing IT infrastructure and the EW Chain as well as fully customize their nodes, without losing sight of the reliability and stability of the network.
“We are excited that the Energy Web Chain, representing some of the most-respected institutions in the energy market, will add Nethermind nodes to the set of validators on their network,” said Tomasz K. Stanczak, founder of Nethermind. “We are looking forward to delivering the highest level of support and continuous improvement of nodes performance and efficiency.”
The collaboration between EW and Nethermind is not only a technical milestone, but also the inaugural project supported by the Energy Web Community Fund. Following multiple discussions in recent months, the EW Chain validators unanimously approved a formal proposal to engage Nethermind to develop a second EW Chain client through the EW Chain governance mechanism in July 2020.
About Nethermind
Founded in 2017 by a small team of world-class technologists, Nethermind builds Ethereum solutions for developers and enterprises. Boosted by a grant from the Ethereum Foundation in August 2018, our team has worked tirelessly to deliver the fastest Ethereum client in the market.
In addition to the client, the Nethermind team has built a peer-to-peer Data Marketplace, run multiple free Advanced EVM workshops to educate developers, and been actively involved with Ethereum Core development. Nethermind is also a maintainer of the Baseline Protocol, and is working to deliver Ethereum 2.0.
For more, please visit http://nethermind.io/.
About Energy Web
Energy Web is a global, member-driven nonprofit accelerating a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity system by unleashing the potential of blockchain and decentralized technologies. EW focuses on our open-source, decentralized, digital technology stack — the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS) — to enable any device, owned by any customer, to participate in any energy market.
In mid-2019, EW launched the Energy Web Chain, the world’s first enterprise-grade, public, open-source blockchain platform tailored to the sector’s regulatory, operational, and market needs. The EW Chain anchors a broader technology stack known as the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS), a blockchain-plus suite of middleware, toolkits, and other digital solutions to support the energy transition.
EW also fostered the world’s largest energy blockchain ecosystem, comprising utilities, grid operators, renewable energy developers, corporate energy buyers, IoT / telecom leaders, and others. More than two-dozen of those companies host validator nodes for the EW Chain. Energy Web has become the industry’s leading energy blockchain partner and most-respected voice of authority on energy blockchain.
For more, please visit https://energyweb.org.
CONTACTS
Gina Rubino, Nethermind
+44 7548 302 009 | gina@nethermind.io
Peter Bronski, Energy Web
+1.201.575.5545 | peter.bronski@energyweb.org
