Neo, Poly Network, and Blockchain-based Service Network recently participated in an Ask Me Anything on the official Neo Telegram channel. The AMA was held to highlight the recent integration of Poly Enterprise into the Blockchain-based Service Network.
The three entities have worked together throughout 2020 in various ways.
In July 2020, Neo was among the initial public blockchain networks to partner with the BSN. BSN is a cross-chain, cross-portal, cross-framework global public infrastructure network used to deploy and operate all types of blockchain applications. As a result of the collaboration, BSN now offers easy Neo MainNet and TestNet node deployment.
In August 2020, Neo co-established Poly Network with Switcheo and Ontology. The partnership’s goal was to develop a protocol to facilitate cross-chain transactions between all participating blockchains without issuing a new token and with minimal integration overhead. Following the Poly Network launch, Switcheo launched TradeHub and Neo released the Flamingo Finance DeFi platform using the technology as their cross chain solution.
The third of the collaborative efforts occurred in November 2020, with BSN integrating Poly Enterprise – an enterprise version of Poly Network. As part of the strategic cooperation agreement, BSN aims to leverage Poly Enterprise to enable data interoperability across various dApps.
In the AMA, the participants discussed the recent integration of Poly Enterprise in BSN from their perspective, reasons for establishing a partnership, and how the entities have collaborated.
A transcript of the AMA can be found below:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Neo Live on the official Neo Telegram channel! I’m Songping Que, from Neo Global Development’s marketing team. I will be today’s moderator.
Let me introduce our guests today.
Henry Ma, BSN chief technology officer.
Henry graduated from Beijing Information Science and Technology University and has worked for Inspur and Achievo for many years. As a senior architect and software development expert, Mr. Ma possesses years of experience in software development and product design. He has outstanding technical capabilities and excellent team management ability.
Our second guest today is Yuan Tan, Poly Network tech lead.
Yuan currently plays various roles at Onchain, including chief system architect, tech lead, and the Poly Network crosschain tech lead. He was one of the core developers at Ontology and has over four years of substantial experience working with blockchain systems and applications. He was also an integral part of the community developed Neo project. He holds command over the intricacies of virtual machines, layer two, and crosschain technology.
Our last guest is an old friend, John Wang, NGD Ecosystem Growth director.
John is the director of NGD Ecosystem Growth. He has many years of experience in management consulting and several successful entrepreneurial experiences. Currently, he’s responsible for the development of Neo’s ecosystem.
Let’s kick off the AMA. We’ll begin with insight sharing from each of the participants.
Please, kindly hold your questions until the question and answer session.
Henry, feel free to share what you’ve prepared for us today.
Henry: Let me introduce the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN or Service network). BSN is a worldwide infrastructure network that provides a one-stop-shop solution for blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) applications (dApp).
BSN is a complex system that involves programming, software development, resource and environment configurations, application deployment, gateway APIs, local SDK, key certificates, plus much more.
To facilitate utilization, BSN International (www.bsnbase.io) 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 (dApps) based on the framework of the permissioned blockchain on their selected public city nodes.
Compared with the Permissionless blockchain dApp, the permissioned blockchain dApp is more flexible in terms of architecture design, operation efficiency, and smart contract programming. For example, we now have Hyperledger Fabric and Fisco BCOS frameworks integrated in the BSN as a permissioned blockchain.
BSN Permissionless service allows the participant to select a public city node to access a plan, which can be a free plan or a premium plan. When this is done, the participant can create a project, obtain the project ID, then determine the key and access parameters to access the selected public chain node gateway.
The Permissionless service is available in BSN International.
Now we have nine public chains integrated into BSN International, including Neo, Nervos, Ethereum, EOS, Tezos, IRISnet, defuse-eos, Solana, ShareRing, and Algorand. Looking forward, BSN plans to integrate three to five public chains every month.
Another important service in BSN is the interchain service.
On the BSN, every blockchain maintains its own transactions, consensus, and ledgers, carrying business data and information of different dApps.
The BSN Interchain Communications Hub (ICH) adopts the cross-chain protocol of heterogeneous chains and the design of the 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 Poly Enterprise and IRITA cross-chain solutions into the 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.
The user manual can be found at the following link:
https://bsnbase.io/static/tmpFile/bzsc/index.html
Thank you very much, Songping.
Songping: As you may know, Neo is working with BSN in all three fields: Permissioned, Permissionless, and Interchain.
Our second guest, Yuan, will continue with his section, from the Poly Network perspective, to elaborate on the Interchain solution and how the three parties work together.
Yuan: Thank you so much! I will introduce Poly Enterprise.
Poly Enterprise, a heterogeneous interoperability protocol initiated by Onchain, is an enterprise-oriented version of the Poly Network launched in August 2020.
Poly Network consists of leading blockchain platforms such as Neo and Ontology. Poly Network aims to build the foundation for Next-generation Internet by enabling greater integration, cooperation, and innovation.
Poly Enterprise optimizes the scope of heterogeneous cross-chain transactions by enabling the transfer of not only assets but also arbitrary information and allows each heterogeneous consortium blockchains to work together seamlessly.
Poly Enterprise already supports Hyperledger Fabric, Fisco BCOS, Ethereum, and Neo protocols through BSN. BSN also plans to implement interoperability between more chains in order to build the NGI infrastructure.
Poly Enterprise enables all dApps to make smart contract calls between blockchains through BSN’s ICH, thus generating more flexible and broader technical architecture and business logic.
Blockchain has become a significant engine for the development of the digital economy. Currently, governments are using crude tools to deal with the global digital revolution.
With the digital transformation of the economy and society, new scientific and technological means represented by blockchain will also play a more important role. Onchain will help BSN achieve more breakthroughs in China’s blockchain industry and ecosystem based on existing technological advantages.
Our website can be found at the following link:
https://www.poly.network/
The Poly Network whitepaper can be found at the following link:
https://www.poly.network/PolyNetwork-whitepaper.pdf
Over $2.75 billion assets use Poly Network crosschain, which can be seen at the following link: https://explorer.poly.network/
Thank you very much, Songping.
Songping: Wow, $2.75 billion is definitely impressive. Thank you, Yuan, for sharing more about Poly Network. John, what do you want to add from Neo’s perspective?
John: Thanks, Songping.
Earlier this year, we also partnered with BSN to build the foundation of mass adoption for a global blockchain network, thus enabling us to build our vision of a truly interconnected world.
BSN is a global infrastructure aimed at building a digital economy by providing a low-cost platform for blockchain projects and companies.
As one of the first public blockchains supported by the network, developers can now access the Neo blockchain via BSN global public city nodes and portals for a simpler development and deployment experience with lower costs. On the other hand, developers can also gain access to other data and services based on the BSN with more integrations of on-chain and off-chain functionalities.
Neo has collaborated with Poly Network this year.
In August 2020, Neo, Ontology, and Switcheo launched the Poly Network, a cutting-edge interoperability protocol. Now, Poly Network is helping connect blockchain networks, ranging from Ethereum to Neo, Ontology, and Cosmos-SDK-based blockchains.
Poly Network is further accelerating the growth of Neo’s non-custodial exchanges. On the day it integrated with Poly Network, TradeHub — Switcheo’s standalone cross-chain order matching engine — processed an equivalent of more than $10 million transaction volume on its first day.
Using Poly Network, Flamingo became Neo’s first financial protocol within the DeFi market to support multi-chain asset mobility, thus overcoming single-chain market limitations while delivering amazing efficiency. Neo has used Poly Network to transfer an equivalent of $600 million to $700 million in assets in and out from Ethereum to Flamingo.
In late October, developers in BSN became able to use Poly Enterprise to build dApps that work with other dApps, even those built using different blockchain frameworks. Poly Enterprise is an adapted version of Poly Network, a cross-chain protocol launched in August.
Most interoperability technologies are at the application-level or framework-level these days, and BSN is trying to build system-level interoperability. We hope this feature will attract more users to BSN and Poly Network. In the end, Poly Network will introduce Neo to more developers, who might want to check out our developer tools in more detail.
Q1: How does Bitcoin integration work on Poly Network? Is it native, wrapped, or some other method?
Yuan: We use a native contract to integrate with Bitcoin. We implement a light client of Bitcoin on the underlying Poly Network chain.
Q2: Are there criteria for competing blockchains to meet before they can be invited to the BSN? If so, how are they identified and onboarded due to their different blockchain goals, strategic priorities, and risk appetites?
Henry: We have criteria for integrated permissioned blockchains, such as multiple channels, node automation management, and SDK functions, among others.
The public chains are selected by the user activity and dApp quantities.
Q3: Why did BSN choose to collaborate with Poly Enterprise?
Henry: We researched Poly Network’s architecture and working model and believed this new cross-chain technology can achieve its goals. Also, Poly Network has been running for months, and it has proven to be a mature solution.
Poly Network is based on the side-chain/relay mode and adopts a two-layer architecture. It employs the Poly Network chain as a cross-chain coordinator, multiple homogeneous chains as crosschain transaction executors, and relayer as a cross-chain information porter.
Q4: What is the connection between BSN and China?
Henry: BSN includes BSN China and BSN International.
BSN China was founded by the BSN development association, including the State Information Center of China, China Mobile, China Union Pay, and Red Date Technology.
Hong Kong Red Date Technology manages BSN International.
Q5: From a technical perspective compared to other crosschain solutions, how does Poly Network stand out?
Yuan: Poly Network stands our because it offers support for heterogenous and homogeneous chains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Neo, Ontology, Cosmos,-SDK, Fisco, Fabric, and Quorum, along with their respective homogenous chain forks.
Poly Network is easily accessible and requires only one to two additional smart contracts to support cross-chain transactions.
Poly Network optimizes the scope of crosschain transactions by enabling the transfer of not only assets, but also arbitrary information.
Lastly, Poly Network operates in an eco-friendly fashion by neither issuing tokens nor smart contracts.
Q6: Where do you see BSN in five years?
Henry: BSN will lower blockchain costs for developers and implement an infrastructure for all kinds of dApps to interoperate with each other easily. BSN plans to provide these services by integrating more portals and communities through the BSN Empowerment platform.
Q7: What are the plans for BSN regarding interoperability? Will BSN continue integrating more protocols? Will this create a competing environment for Poly Network?
Henry: Currently, BSN has integrated Poly Enterprise and IRITA 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 crosschain solution will be based on BSN’s multiple heterogeneous chains and the features of the Public City Nodes 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 Poly Network.
Q8: Can an asset be locked in one chain while another chain processes transactions relevant to that asset?
Yuan: Yes, a user can lock an asset in one chain, and get the mapping asset in another, then process that transaction in the other chain.
Note: Some edits have been made for formatting and readability.
The full AMA can be found at the link below:
https://t.me/NEO_EN/97115