Recently, I had an interesting discussion with Matthias Klees (MK) of the Europecoin Team about an intriguing device currently under development by his new startup Federated Blockchhttps://twitter.com/EuropeCoinBotains.
I hope you enjoy his insights and are as anxious about this new project, API, and device as I am:
KH: Matthias, as soon as I saw this device I instantly became curious. How did this idea take shape?
MK: In December of 2016, it started with Europecoin making a call-for-developers, by publishing a paper on “a permissionless, chain-agnostic federated service bus” with an idea of “how to get such a “finance API (application programming interface)” done. After getting in touch with the “internet-of-coins” team, I realized, that this was exactly, what these guys had been developing for over two years. Because the I.o.C. team didn’t like to get too much exposure in public, we met each other face to face, to join our efforts. The internet of coins team kept focussing on developing the “Coinstorm Hybrid Technology” while I was doing some education on the ground.
While learning, I became aware of the fact, that such an abstract technology, would be rather difficult to grasp (even for slightly informed crypto users). This triggered a thought process and I realized, that an average non-crypto user, still is lost with even the simplest tasks, to take advantage to form the crypto revolution. We, the crypto community simply failed to transform our technology into an accessible product for everybody. In fact, our community rushed as soon, as one idea has been developed, to the next “innovation” without even thinking about taking anything to the mainstream market.
KH: Matthias, tell me more about your team and the current status of the project.
MK: The Federation Protocol is a blockchain integration concept we are testing integration using the SIA blockchain. The testing of this premature version is the payment gateway, while the hardware layout of the device is completed.
Our first round of funding has been raised and we are now working with four developer teams:
The Internet-of-Coins Team is in the process of finalizing the cross-chain smart contract service bus that mostly done and currently in beta.
Olaf Breuer, from IBM Watson Studio (Munich), is running our hardware development, which is currently completing our second version of the prototype and our own hardware encryption system.
Florian Winter, a private developer, is building our own multi-coin-to-fiat payment gateway, which is currently, functional, but in pre-alpha testing.
Jan Külkens is a Ph.D. in Informatics, specializing in Server and Cloud Management. He is developing our own MulticoinX Electrum Server Deamon, which is progressing in a premature state.
KH: I think that it is great that you are trying to make cryptocurrencies more accessible and understandable by the common person, but what is the goal of this project?
MK: New users are challenged to understand things, that are basic and easy for an experienced crypto user, like exchanges, payment processes or how to power a shop and to earn cryptocurrencies as a payment. Even if there are some solutions around, they have to find them to know about them. All in all, a fresh user will have a long learning curve of finding, understanding, installing and investigating numerous services, websites, and wallets.
So, we are aiming, to make cryptocurrencies more accessible, easy, and secure; while keeping the user in control. The idea is to put everything into a cloud, controlled by the user and give him the choice, with whom to communicate, share and federate. We are making tools easy, unified and accessible, to make crypto a daily choice for average mainstream users. To achieve that we are developing a hardware based and hardware encrypted cloud device with an app-store, based on the internet-of-coins service bus.
KH: How would you describe this solution for users?
MK: A pre-configured, hardware encrypted device for a home network. Users can plug it into their router, choose coins, exchanges, and services from their app-store and can use all these innovations via one unified interface, without having to know about the technology behind it. You will be able to switch from “user mode” to “professional-mode” to do advanced operations.
KH: How would you characterize the solution for traders?
MK: The device will come with a pre-configured online-shop, that enables to accept over a hundred cryptocurrencies via our payment gateway to conventional fiat currencies and vice versa. Traders will find most of the exchanges under one single interface and can choose them via the app store. Merchants will be able to stick with their point-of-sales system of choice, by just plugging our device into their network.
KH: How can this proposed device help developers?
MK: The app-store works in a hardware encrypted container inside of a cloud network of user devices. It provides an app-wizard, that generates an HTML5-App-Skeleton from any given service API, wallet API, or ElectrumX server with a single push of a button. A version-control with GitHub integration helps him managing his software.
KH: How can this device and API assist experts in the space?
MK: The Finance Cloud API is connecting any Altcoin and Bitcoin to the Ethereum smart contract network via Internet-of-Coins (Coinstorm) hybrid network. Adding your service or coin as an app will be a snap via the app-stores developer access. Europecoin will provide its “Soft-Cold-Storage” Blockchain capabilities to the network for any form of value. Other data can be, freely chosen, stored into locations, clouds or blockchains like SIA cloud and will be hardware encrypted on the fly by your Financecloud device. An anonymity gateway (Tor, Mixer, and others) can be optionally used from the app-store.
KH: How can the device help industry?
MK: The API comes with a Java and a Python interface, that can connect to point-of-sales systems and other business software interfaces. A cloud-to-cloud Federation protocol enables businesses, to connect and to do financial collaboration in a peer-to-peer manner.
There is so much to look forward to with this device and the possibilities that it can provide to all the groups mentioned. I will be sure to remain posted on future developments and report back once it is ready for public consumption.
If you would like to know more information about this project, visit:
https://www.info.federatedblockchains.eu.org
You can also find our more on the EuropeCoin team, here:
Kamal Hubbard is a lawyer by training who is certified in Fraud Examination, Cybersecurity, and Decentralized Finance.