Apla Blockchain Platform

Apla is a tech company that uses blockchain technology to help organizations work faster, safer and with greater impact. Recently I came to read about the Apla blockchain platform and its white paper. This article will be a short summary of the white paper and focuses on the highlights of the platform.

What is Apla Blockchain Platform?

According to the white paper

Apla blockchain is a secure, simple and compliant blockchain infrastructure for a fast-growing global collaborative economy segment. SMEs(small and medium-sized enterprises) will benefit from reducing operational costs and go-to-market time, fundraising solutions at an early development stage, automation of business processes, integrated settlement system.

It means that the Apla platform allows small and medium enterprises to reduce operational costs, helps in fundraising and automates various processes by providing a ledger based ecosystem. Apla can be deployed by any enterprises regardless of its size, for many uses cases. And the blockchain aims to enable the SMEs to facilitate the needs of the fast-growing collaborative economy segment. It makes use of a platform token called APL token

Apla also offers a growing number of DApps to automate various business activities. The transaction processing cost on Apla will be a value of 0,0009 APL token per transaction (around €0,01 if calculated based on the initial token sale price), excluding the AML compliance fees.

How does Apla Solve the Real Market Problems?

1. Access to banking services

A major challenge blockchain startups face across the world, is cut off from access to banking services. Banking institutions globally are not supporting fiat/crypto exchange transactions of their clients.

Apla’s Solution:

The users of Apla will be able to open accounts in EUR currency with SnapSwap(a licensed electronic money institution in Luxembourg).SnapSwap accounts will have IBAN numbers. The account owners can send EUR to those accounts from their bank accounts and vice versa. These accounts may be used for processing of exchange transactions with APL tokens. New proprietary tokens issued on Apla Blockchain in any of the ecosystems may be exchanged into EUR through APL tokens.

2. Poor liquidity of cryptocurrencies

Apla’s Solution:

The liquidity of APL tokens will be supported by a decentralized marketplace on Apla. The marketplace will be used by APL wallet holders for buying and selling APL Tokens with a link to the SnapSwap accounts.

3. Preventing Money Laundering

Public enforcement agencies and regulators are concerned with the lack of AML/CFT (anti-money laundering — combating the financing of terrorism) compliance monitoring of transactions in the blockchain technologies

Apla’s Solution:

Apla Blockchain is designed to meet AML/CFT regulatory requirements. Creation of new wallets and transfer of APL tokens between the wallets will be controlled by Supervised Financial Institutions through the Apla original AML filtering smart contract. Special governance procedures are implemented to comply with data protection requirements.

4. Account thefts and loss of funds

Security constraints of blockchain protocols may lead to account thefts and loss of funds

Apla’s Solution:

Apla claims to offer the enterprise-grade security of the network. The validating nodes are certified data centers that must adhere to minimum IT system standards, compliant with ISO/IEC 27001. Apla deploys an original data vulnerability risk management mechanism to remedy negative results of system failures, human errors or cybersecurity attacks without the necessity of creating a fork.

5. The Burden of costs of blockchain solutions for startups

Apla’s Solution:

Apla offers ready-to-use integrated development environment and business management tools for creating applications on the platform. There is no need to use third party software products for that.

Users can work in a smart contract editor environment with an original core platform programming language called Simvolio. It is simple and similar to JavaScript. Blockchain developers will be able to offer white label applications for specific use cases on Apla that can be accessed by enterprises and their customers from any of the ecosystem without a need of creating a new software solution.

How to set up business activity in Apla

In order to set up a business in Apla, the following 5 steps must be followed

1. Open Account With SnapSwap:

Fiat currency needs to be sent to the account for buying APL Tokens

2. Download software for APL Wallet on Apla:

An APL Wallet has to be validated by SnapSwap after the completion of the KYC procedure

3. Get APL Tokens on your APL Wallet:

APL tokens can be purchased on the Apla decentralized marketplace for EUR held on your SnapSwap account

4. Create and configure your ecosystem on Apla:

APL tokens will be spent to pay for platform resources

5. Start the business activity

Enterprises are free to define the rules of functioning their ecosystems (smart laws) and establish their own monetization model pertaining to the ecosystems they create. The fee settlement can be automated through the acceptance of APL tokens

How does Apla work?

Apla blockchain constitutes three parts.

1. Network

Apla Blockchain is based on a peer-to-peer network. Full nodes of the network store an up-to-date version of the blockchain and a database, in which the current state of the platform is recorded. After having been verified, transactions are recorded in a new block, and the data is simultaneously updated in the database.

2. Ecosystem

The Apla Ecosystem are quasi-autonomous clusters created by enterprises to conduct various business activities. These relatively closed programming environments include large numbers of applications.

There are two categories of ecosystems in Apla Blockchain: the platform ecosystem and users’ ecosystems. The parameters and smart laws of the platform ecosystem are defined by the stakeholders providing the infrastructure services to the users. These services include Validating Nodes, Supervised Financial Institutions, Apla Consensus ASBL and Apla Luxembourg)

The platform ecosystem has APL wallets, DApps store and other applications that may be accessed to and used by the members of the other ecosystems.
Only a holder of an APL Wallet is eligible to create a user ecosystem on Apla.

3. Database

A common database is used for the whole platform for contracts and interfaces to quickly search and obtain data. The copies of the database will be stored on all full nodes of the network. Transactions that are broadcast to the network by contracts are in essence, table entries in the database. During the creation of a block and its subsequent addition to the blockchain, the database is simultaneously updated on all full nodes of the platform.

Resources provided by Apla

Apla will also provide multiple resources to enterprises at the launch like

Apla proof-of-concepts

• Supply chain management
• Decentralized marketplaces
• Security tokens issue and trading platform
• Land and vehicle registries
• Certificate issues

Infrastructure for governance

• Apla Consensus ASBL — a corporate set up for on-boarding validating nodes and supervised financial institutions
• AML/CFT compliance architecture
• Data security risk management. procedure

Integrated development environment

• Molis Software Client
• Apla applications
• Smart contracts
• Smart laws
• User interfaces
• Language resources editor
• Access rights control mechanism
• Import-Export Applications
• APIs

Legal framework

• Legally binding smart contracts
• Apla Legal Documentation
• Apla Policies
• Arbitration in Luxembourg
• Automated enforcement through smart laws

Conclusion

If implemented, any user of the Apla ecosystem will be in a position to create their own ecosystems in a single click. There are great demands and potential for the solutions offered by the Apla.

All the information provided in this article are based on the white paper of the platform.