AMA Recap | BSN’s interoperability brought by IRISnet/IRITA
BSN x IRISnet AMA — Nov 24th 2020
🌈 IRISnet Community,
It is a pleasure for me to introduce you to the transcription of the AMA that took place on the IRIS network telegram channel at 8am UTC on November 24th.
On this occasion, we had the honor to host a renowned expert from the blockchain industry:
Mr. Henry Ma, BSN’s Chief Architect & CTO of Red Date Technology.
Mr. Ma has 10+ years of experience in software development and product design.
He is the Chief Architect of BSN and a hands-on engineer in delivering all BSN products, including public BSN, private BSN and BSN empowerment platform.
He supervises all technical work related to integration of permissionless/permissioned chains, open permissioned blockchain initiative, and interchain services in BSN.
His expertise in R&D and years of experience in building and leading teams takes BSN to the next level.
The second notable guest of this AMA was our Mr. Zhiwei Hu, IRISnet Director of Research.
Jeffrey Hu is the Research Director of IRISnet and heads the strategy and technology research as well as ecosystem development.
He is also the former chief technical analyst at Huobi Research.
He has extensive experience in the blockchain industry.
He published many in-depth Blockchain research reports which made a great influence in China.
Mr. Ma and Mr. Zhiwei Hu answered in-depth the questions asked by our beloved mascot NyanCat so that to be able to make extremely technical concepts on a conversational level, thus including all members who have just joined us.
I hope that this important moment of sharing with you is only the first of many appointments in the name of knowledge.
Because as we love to remember, you cannot really support a project without first understanding it.
But don’t be afraid, learning is easier if we do it together!
⭐️ Table of Contents ⭐️
- Introduction
- About BSN
- About IRISnet/IRITA
- Community Q&A
- Resources
💬 Introduction
NyanCat (Moderator)
IRISnet community has had knowledge of BSN, but for newcomers, Mr. Ma, could you please share us more about BSN?
Mr. Henry Ma | BSN
“Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN or Service network) is a worldwide infrastructure network that provides a one-stop-shop solution for blockchain and distributed ledger technology applications.
BSN is a complex system that involves programming, software development, resource and environment configurations, application deployment, gateway APIs, local SDK, key certificates, etc.
To facilitate utilization, BSN International has prepared this document for developers and users to learn how to use BSN.
We hope that BSN will become the first choice for developers to develop and run their DApps.
BSN provides developers three types of services:
Permissioned, Permissionless, and Interchain services.
- The Permissioned service is one of the core services provided by BSN.
Its goal is to make it easy for developers to publish decentralized applications based on the framework of the permissioned blockchain on their selected public city nodes. We now have Hyperledger Fabric, Fisco BCOS frameworks integrated into the BSN as permissioned blockchain. - BSN Permissionless service allows the participant to select a public city node to access a plan that can be a free plan or a premium plan.
When this is done, the participant can create a project, obtain the project ID, key, and access parameters which can be used to access selected public chain node gateway.
The permissionless service is available in BSN International.
Now we have 13 public chains integrated into BSN International, including NEO, Nervos, Ethereum, EOS, Tezos, IRISnet, dfuse-eos, Solana, ShareRing, Algorand, Polkadot, Oasis, and Bityuan. The BSN will integrate 3–5 public chains every month. - Another important service in BSN is interchain service.
The BSN Interchain Communications Hub (ICH) adopts the cross-chain protocol of heterogeneous chains and the design of a double-layer structure, using relay chains as cross-chain coordinators, multiple heterogeneous chains as cross-chain transaction executors, and acts as a relayer of cross-chain data.
we have integrated IRITA and Poly Enterprise cross-chain solutions into BSN ICH, and we will integrate more cross-chain protocols in the coming year.
Now, the interchain service is available in BSN Testnet, and we encourage developers to experience the service for free.”
Useful Links:
⛩ The BSN international portal
📑 User Manual
NyanCat (Moderator)
“Dedicated to achieving the “Internet of blockchains” vision, BSN is working in Permissioned, Permissionless, and Interchain service, and as you may know, IRISnet is closely collaborating with BSN to support this vision.
Mr. Hu, please briefly introduce IRISnet.”
Mr. Jeffrey Hu | IRISnet
“IRISnet (IRIS Network) is designed to be the foundation for the next-generation distributed applications.
About IRISnet’s mainnet:
IRIS Hub is built with Cosmos-SDK and enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model while providing a variety of modules to support DeFi applications.
IRIS Hub is designed to support not only token transfers across the internet of blockchains but also to allow consumption of data and computing resources across heterogenous systems mechanisms, token economics, etc.”
💬 About BSN
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓What is the Interchain Communications Hub of BSN?
Mr. Henry Ma | BSN
“As I mentioned above, The BSN Interchain Communications Hub (ICH) adopts the cross-chain protocol of heterogeneous chains and the design of a double-layer structure, using relay chains as cross-chain coordinators, multiple heterogeneous chains as cross-chain transaction executors, and acts as a relayer of cross-chain data.
By solving validity, security, and transactional issues of cross-chain data, a secure, easy-to-use and efficient cross-chain system is implemented：
- Supports both isomorphic and heterogeneous chains.
- Supports any information to cross the chains.
- Very easy to access. Application chains do not need to do custom development adaptation, just deploy one smart contract per chain.
- Transactional support, supporting not only scenarios with the need for ultimate consistency of transactions, but also scenarios with the need for strong consistency of transactions, with support for any transaction, and scalable to any number of chains.
- Cross-chain protocols are secure and reliable, based on cryptography and consensus algorithms, and each application chain can verify the legitimacy of cross-chain transactions on its own, thus ensuring the security of cross-chain interactions.”
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓Why did BSN choose to collaborate with IRISnet/IRITA?
Mr. Henry Ma | BSN
“The goal of BSN is to build a better next-generation internet infrastructure.
We did an investigation about the IRITA’s architecture and working model, we believe this new cross-chain technology could achieve this.
IRITA Hub uses IBC (Inter-blockchain Communication Protocol) and iService (Inter-blockchain service) as technical protocols to achieve interoperability among blockchains.
IBC was proposed by the world-renown inter-blockchain project Cosmos at the end of 2016.
After four-year development, it has been recognized by the global blockchain technology communities as the most mature protocol for interoperability at this moment.
That’s why BSN choose to collaborate with IRISnet/IRITA.”
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓As you mentioned in the introduction, BSN has launched the Testnet for the interchain service, can you tell us more about this?
Mr. Henry Ma | BSN
“This is really a good news for developers!
BSN Testnet is a free test environment for developers to test their permissioned DApp services and interchain services.
Developers can publish an unlimited number of permissioned DApp services on the testnet.
Unlike the BSN production environment, it is not necessary to choose the public city nodes and configure the invocation authorities of smart contracts when publishing DApp services on the testnet.
The Testnet supports Hyperledger Fabric and FISCO BCOS frameworks, and will continue to integrate all BSN-adapted permissioned frameworks.
Currently, the interchain services based on IRITA and Poly Enterprise are available on Testnet.
Developers can call the smart contract from another chain by the interchain services.
As all Testnets do, we will occasionally reset the Testnet and delete all smart contracts and ledger data.
Therefore, please do not use the Testnet as a commercial or production environment.
We welcome developers to try the service and provide us with feedback and suggestions as we continue to make improvements.”
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓Could you share with us the future plans for BSN regarding interoperability? Will BSN keep integrating more protocols?
And will this create a competing environment for IRITA?
Mr. Henry Ma | BSN
“Currently BSN has integrated IRITA and Poly Enterprise as cross-chain solutions.
BSN will keep integrating more cross-chain protocols, and all of the integrated cross-chain protocols will be part of BSN Interchain Communications Hub(ICH).
BSN plans to roll out the commercial interchain services in the next release. The cross-chain solution will base on the BSN multiple heterogeneous chains and the features of the Public City Nodes(PCNs) to rebuild the Relayer services.
The charge model will also take the complex situation into account.
BSN wants to build true interoperability for the developers.
It will surely provide a competing environment for IRITA.”
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓IRISnet has integrated its public service into BSN and joined BSN’s open permissioned blockchain initiative, can you tell us more about this initiative and what does this mean to IRITA?
Mr. Henry Ma | BSN
“As an important part of the global blockchain technology development, public blockchains have their unique technologies, applications, and ecosystems.
However, the public blockchain technology has failed to penetrate the Chinese market due to regulatory concerns and a lack of product-market fit.
BSN believes it is necessary to trail-blaze a new path that allows public blockchain technology to grow steadily in China.
As such, BSN plans to transform public blockchains into the “Open Permissioned Blockchain,” so that it can be seamlessly deployed on the BSN China ecosystem.
This is the most direct and effective way for public blockchain technology like IRISnet to legally enter and provide services to developers in China.
The BSN Open Permissioned Blockchain Initiative will adapt public chains to offer permissioned controls over node deployment and removes the mechanism of using cryptocurrencies to pay for gas fees.
Compared with traditional permissioned blockchains, an open permissioned blockchain allows DApps to operate through master nodes instead of running their own peer nodes.
Additionally, just like public chains, DApps are public and can be invoked by anyone with the smart contract addresses.
For many small to medium-sized companies, this open permissioned blockchain framework is an easier and more cost-effective way to deploy DApps, even with the limited capability compared to traditional permissioned frameworks such as Hyperledger Fabric.
With the interoperability protocols like IRITA, the interchain services among permissioned chains, public chains, and open permissioned chains are going to be supported.
We believe we are able to accelerate the development of the adoption of blockchain technology and allow SMEs to access blockchain technology affordably.”
💬 About IRISnet/IRITA
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓What is IRITA Hub? What service can IRITA Hub provide and what will IRITA Hub bring to BSN?
Mr. Jeffrey Hu | IRISnet
“IRITA Hub is a proprietary interchain service product along the IRITA consortium blockchain product line developed by Bianjie.
It can support the cross-chain interoperability among various consortium blockchains in the BSN ecosystem such as Hyperledger Fabric and FISCO BCOS, and also support the cross-chain interoperability between consortium blockchains and public chains such as Ethereum and IRISnet in the BSN International.
At the same time, IRITA Hub is able to support access to off-chain trusted data on oracles such as Chainlink.
So IRITA Hub can provide the important and indispensable technical basis for BSN to become the “Internet of the Blockchains”.
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓Dedicated to the interchain service, how IRITA Hub can achieve interoperability among heterogeneous systems and further help BSN achieve the “Internet of the Blockchains” vision?
Mr. Jeffrey Hu | IRISnet
“What I expect the “Internet of the Blockchains” is that we should first abandon the prejudgement of the differences between Public blockchain, Consortium blockchain, Private blockchains, and even non-blockchains
“Internet” should have the interoperability and interconnection between both permissioned blockchains and permissionless blockchains, both on-chains and off-chains.
IRITA Hub will achieve this vision by IBC + iService.
As a reference to the Internet, IBC could be regarded as TCP/IP which handles the message transmission between blockchains.
On the application layer, iService could be regarded as an HTTP protocol
All kinds of services could be published on-chain and be interoperated.
With IBC and iService, many kinds of services as for example
- Permissioned blockchains, like Fabric, FISCO BCOS
- Public chains, like IRISnet & Ethereum
- Off-chain data service, like Chainlink,
Could be interconnected and interoperable on BSN ICH
An application on one chain like on Fabric can invoke the service on another chain like on FISCO BCOS, IRISnet, or Ethereum.
Upon IBC and iService, our developers made a lot of efforts to it happen:
- iService application msg on IBC relayer, so that interchain service msg can be transmitted between blockchains
- iService Extension on different blockchains, so that the smart-contracts/dApps on these chains could interact with iService on ICH and other blockchains
- Adapted off-chain data services like Chainlink.
IRISnet received Chainlink’s grant for this integration
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓IRITA Hub has launched at the BSN’s Interchain Communications Hub and also on the BSN’s Testnet, can you explain more about this with some specific usage examples?
Mr. Jeffrey Hu | IRISnet
“IRISnet’s core dev team Bianjie has many applications and business partners.
All of these could potentially be used on BSN ICH.
Let’s take 2 cases for example:
- Ticketing
StarryMedia team, long focused on the blockchain decentralization technology and application scenarios including e-ticketing, transportation and consumption, sports and health, and many other more aspects, received IRISnet’s tech-grants.
StarryMedia team will build Uptick, which will be available on IRISnet mainnet to provide interchain NFT application services for IRISnet users as well as other network users through cross-chain technology.
At the same time, Uptick can also be quickly adopted and launched on IRITA Hub.
Leveraging BSN ICH, it will be convenient to form NFT-supported ticketing based on IRITA, develop the ticketing version that has the interchain capability based on consortium blockchains, and then put into commercial operation.
For example, events host or its commercial partners can issue an e-ticket on BSN ICH/IRITA Hub, so that many end-users can buy these tickets
And users can exchange these tickets as a secondary market if they decide not to go to the event.
As a comparison, recently, the second large gaming company, NetEase, used NFT as a ticket for its annual “Future Summit”
But it seems it is still on only one chain
What we would expect is that, with the help of BSN ICH/IRITA Hub, these NFT tickets could be exchanged and verified on many chains.
These ideas also are mentioned by Brian, the founder of StarryMedia, on Cosmos NFT Working Group last week.
I also shared some information on Twitter before.
2. Certification and Signature Service
Bianjie’s partner, One Identity Express, is a leading identify service provider in China and has formed partnerships with many CA institutions and enterprises.
Their services of certificates and signatures can be published on BSN ICH/IRITA Hub.
For example, One Identity Express can issue service of digital signature for business usage.
A company can easily sign an agreement by invoking the signature service on BSN ICH, and distribute the signed agreement;
And the counterparty of the agreement can receive it without worrying about fake because they can also easily verify the signature by querying the service on BSN ICH.
Comparing to those centralized CA services, the process mentioned above can all be verified and audited on-chain.”
🤝More details about the partnership.
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓As Mr. Ma mentioned above, IRISnet collaborates with BSN in many aspects, including the public chain integration, the O.P.B initiative participation, IRISnet-BSN Developer Portal, etc., can you share some updates and latest progress to us?
Mr. Jeffrey Hu | IRISnet
“Besides the IRITA Hub, that we are actively developing, there are other BSN services in which we are participating right now:
- Public chain integration on BSN International
Just like what Infura means to Ethereum, the public chain services provided by BSN International will help developers of IRISnet: no need to run a node by oneself, but can simply use the IRIS Hub’s node API on BSN International.
- Open Permissioned Blockchain
IRISnet has been selected together with Cosmos, Ethereum, Polkadot, Tezos, Algorand, Nervos, and Huobi Chain by BSN and currently, our dev teams are working hard to help both IRISnet and Cosmos to be adapted to BSN OPB.”
NyanCat (Moderator)
❓Aside from the achieved progress mentioned, what is the next move for the collaboration of IRITA Hub and BSN? For developers and service consumers, how can they benefit from this?
Mr. Jeffrey Hu | IRISnet
“In the future, IRISnet core dev team Bianjie will join hands with BSN to continue our works in these aspects:
- Improvement of the interchain service function:
To extend the iService function and IBC protocol based on IRITA Hub - Creation and implementation of developers’ tools:
Provide new tools to simplify the difficulties of defining, binding, and releasing services for developers so that they can save time and resources by investing in other strategic areas such as business applications and logistics - Introduction of concrete commercial applications
Encourage developers and corporations to focus on improving and maturing their services and further enriching the usage scenarios as well, meeting the service needs of different blockchains.
The usage scenarios will include NFT, Certifications which we have talked about above.
And I believe there will be much more we can expect with the interoperability of BSN ICH and IRITA Hub.
💬 Community Q&A
NyanCat (Moderator)
Now, it’s the final part, Q&A time!
Let’s see which questions will be choose by our guests!
❓Where is the “ BSN ” name coming from?
Mr. Henry Ma: The full name of BSN is Blockchain-based Service Network, it is a worldwide infrastructure network that provides a one-stop-shop solution for blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) applications (DApp).
❓I see IRITA as a Dapp for enterprises by IRISnet. So this means the transactions generated in IRITA will be reflected on IRISnet? Or what token or fee use IRITA?
Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Well, IRITA is a consortium blockchain product and can be deployed in many scenarios including BSN ICH, and other business applications environments.
IRITA Hub is a proprietary interchain service product along the IRITA consortium blockchain product line developed by Bianjie.
With IRITA Hub, public chains, permissioned blockchains as well as centralized systems can interact with each other.
But when a user on IRITA Hub needs services from public chains, I think the most convenient way is to be connected with IRIS Hub. The fee model can be decided on the different environment: like service fee on IRIS Hub will be charged in IRIS and on ICH it would be decided by BSN.
❓What is your plan for 2021?
Mr. Henry Ma: BSN will continue to focus on lowering down the blockchain cost for developers, and implementing an infrastructure for all kinds of DApps to easily interoperate with each other.
BSN plans to provide services by integrating more portals, communities through the BSN Empowerment platform.
❓I want to support your project, in what ways can we participate?
Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Yes! We do have one, and we are still polish it now and will publish soon 🙂 Please stay tuned.
📚 Resources
Are you curious to learn more about the collaborations between BSN & IRISnet?
Here are the articles for you:
- IRISnet Enterprise IRITA has been chosen by BSN to support Cosmos Ecosystem
- IRITA interchain service, IRITA Hub, has launched at BSN
- BSN Integrates Chainlink Oracles, Bringing Real-World Data Into Its IRITA Powered Network
- IRISnet is selected into first batch of public blockchains supported by BSN
- IRISnet plans to integrate related services as a public chain service portal of BSN International
About IRISnet
IRISnet (a.k.a IRIS Hub) is an Interchain Service Hub designed to support the next generation of distributed applications. Built with Cosmos-SDK, IRIS Hub enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model, which supports not only token interchain transfer but also trustworthy data consumption and computation invocation across heterogeneous systems.
IRIS Hub is the first self evolutionary blockchain launched in the Cosmos ecosystem.
IRISnet dev teams include Bianjie, a national award-winning blockchain technology team based in Shanghai, and Tendermint, the world-famous team that created the Tendermint consensus engine and the Cosmos project.
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