Zen Protocol, a blockchain built for finance, announces its testnet and actively welcomes beta testers. Zen revolutionizes public blockchain, making secure, peer to peer finance possible and removing the need for third parties, such as banks and brokers.
Today large number of businesses (especially SMEs) and individuals face various barriers to entry, which, sometimes, are impossible to overcome. This stems from the centralized, complex, and “access-unfriendly” character of the existing financial systems. Experienced players, of course, have enough competence to deal with the paperwork and bureaucracy, but all the rest are left behind. The most part of potential trades, in such a way, are lost, as they have to use services of third parties to gain limited access to the system, being unable to issue or sometimes even trade assets.
Zen addresses the problem ambitiously: it enables everyone anytime anywhere in the world to create and trade financial products (including commodity, stocks, and even real estate). More particularly, Zen creates an open marketplace where users can operate various types of financial instruments, including (but not limited to) options, futures, digital currencies, ETFs, and exotics. This makes this new chain a more fully fledged financial system compared the others, crypto enthusiasts have seen so far. A platform used for these purposes is secured with a proof-of-work blockchain.
The protocol is built to support a comprehensive financial system, which must be open, frictionless, and completely decentralized. The Zen Protocol’s reference implementation uses the .NET stack and the F*, a functional programming language developed by Inria and Microsoft, to power contracts which first of all, are provably correct, and then, never exhaust network resources.
Unlike other platforms, Zen allows its miners get to know the amount of computation a contract requires, before actually verifying it. This makes it possible for Zen to avoid virtual machine or a resource counter, thus making contracts extremely fast to execute. The speed of contracts’ execution can only be compared to this of compiled system code.
In addition, building smart contracts with real utility, Zen makes it viable to use real-world data and work without any intermediaries or central control. As all assets on Zen are created by contracts, there is a possibility of decentralized, automated escrow which enables traders operate avoiding trusted counterparties.
“We are focused on creating a fully decentralized finance platform that offers secure, scalable transactions,” – said Adam Perlow, CEO of Zen Protocol Development.
As a step forward usability and compatibility from platforms which implement tokens as a second-layer protocol Zen offers first class tokens, assets that can be held and transferred without running issuing contracts. In addition, new assets are always usable in the framework of any existing or future contract.
With its own POW scheme, the Zen blockchain is parallel to Bitcoin incorporating commitments to the state of Bitcoin’s blockchain. This close connection makes it possible, for example, to sell assets for bitcoins or to create Bitcoin-backed assets. Zen Protocol, in its turnm can use support from any future side chain in the framework of the Bitcoin protocol.
“Tokens are the incentive for mining. We believe in Bitcoin’s model of bootstrapping security via inflation, when the costs would otherwise be carried by the user base,” added Mr. Perlow.
In more detail, Zen Protocol offers a number of improvements over previous attempts including:
- Scalability: due to off-chain transactions and an active contract set.
- Resilient incentive alignment: there are robust incentives for miners to deliver efficient, reliable security, As the Zen blockchain is secured by multiple proof-of-work algorithms strengthened with token-holder voting on the balance.
- Useful real-world data: connection to real events and external sources of information allows for commercially viable data feeds.
- Security: usage of F* demonstrates contracts are free of errors and security flaws.
- Bounded contracts: the cost of executing contracts is notified in advance, enabling compiled contracts and guaranteeing that transaction enter the blockchain only in case the contracts are fully and successfully executed.
There is no date on ICO start yet. But pre-sale is already available.
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