ShipChain Plans for Future Following Battle With NASAA
Blockchain company ShipChain is seeing a comeback after a difficult legal battle with the North American Securities Administrators Association.
The association accused ShipChain of dealing in securities while unauthorized and issued a cease and desist order. The company said these allegations were based on misunderstandings of the company’s workings. Since the ruling of the South Carolina Securities Division in its favor, the company has made it a goal to make up for lost time. Now, they have announced the launching of new initiatives for continued growth and enhanced customer experience.
One of these initiatives, Transmission, was released last year. Transmission is a platform designed to work with the blockchain to speed up shipment data searches. Since its release, the platform has required an updated security paradigm to manage encryption and decryption of outside files.
This need led to the development of Engine, which wraps these blockchain interactions behind an internal NodeJS service. Engine allows users to store keys from multiple wallets and authorizes approved third parties to manage blockchain interactions on the user’s behalf. It also securely saves Vault credentials, so users can decrypt PDF attachments along with shipment tracking. Both Transmission and Engine are currently available on ShipChain’s GitHub as beta projects.
ShipChain Offers More Options for Security and Data Storage
ShipChain has also launched a project, called ShipChain Vaults, to overcome the various roadblocks associated with Long-Term Large-Object Storage. Vaults are intended as a temporary measure to solve the problems associated with storing large data on the Ethereum chain, which gives users the option of choosing where and how to store private data. Currently, they’re only available as part of the Engines package, not as a standalone initiative. Users will be able to pay a minimal fee to operators willing to store data in Vaults on their behalf. The company is still deciding whether Vaults will be made available independent of Engines.
Soon, the company also plans to release the hardware and software specs to allow users to make their own ShipChain Gateway Devices. In the meantime, it has begun development of a free Android app called Lite-Client. It offers all the features of the web platform, as well as some GPS Track-and-Trace features. The app is due to launch in 2019.
ShipChain has also announced the development of Loom, a sidechain off the Ethereum blockchain. Loom will allow the company to use an Ethereum-based blockchain while also enabling interchain transfers, all without the typical congestion or occasional high costs. The company says this initiative is part of its dedication to creating a public blockchain based on decentralization, dependent on public validation nodes that pay validators for their work. Loom currently uses delegated Proof-of-Stake, which associates every token with a vote for witnesses. Those who hold the most tokens are made validators and given an income from network transaction fees.
ShipChain is excited to bring all these innovations — and more — to the shipping world.
