Applied Blockchain

What is your blockchain solutions experience?

Applied Blockchain has a team of highly skilled in-house developers who have been building full stack blockchain applications for three years. To date, we have built over 20 end-to-end blockchain solutions, including mobile applications with biometrics and wallets, enterprise blockchain adapters, blockchain data cache for analytics, private, permissioned smart contracts, as well as public blockchain contracts and a token issuance platform. We have worked with both enterprises and startups across banking, wealth management, trade finance, property, aviation, recruitment and legal sectors.

In which countries do you operate?

We are based out of the Level39 Fintech Accelerator in Canary Wharf, London, but we operate globally. We have experience building blockchain solutions for both corporates and startups in the UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia, China, USA and South America.

How are you different to a (big) consulting firm?

Through building several real-world, solutions for startup clients, our team has the hands-on experience in using the technology and building full end-to-end solutions for a number of use cases across a number of sectors. Simultaneously working with enterprise clients means we also build in line with corporate requirements for components such as security, privacy and interoperability, hardening our technology stack and factoring scale in from the architectural design stage. For our startup clients, we sometimes also offer partnership opportunities with a range of benefits for early-stage companies.

Is there support at the implementation stage?

Yes, we work closely with our clients to develop and refine the scope throughout the engagement, from the inception of the idea through to the public launch of the full solution. Adi Ben-Ari, Applied Blockchain CEO and Chief Architect, has over 20 years working in enterprise IT across Telecoms and Banking and is well versed in the end-to-end project management of large and complex strategic implementation programmes.

How long is a typical project?

Our team operate with an agile methodology and build solutions with quick turnaround, usually completing a proof of concept or minimum viable product solution within 6-12 weeks. Subsequent stages leading to fully functional solutions deployed to productions environments typically take a number of months to complete.

Do you provide training?

Yes, we have delivered blockchain training workshops for many corporate clients to explain the principles of blockchain and its use cases to C-level executives and directors. We have worked with institutions such as the British Bankers Associate, Siemens and Lloyds Banking Group.

Is your team available to work at the client site?

Yes, if required. Although our agile approach lends itself better to having our developers working around the same table. In any case, we schedule weekly or fortnightly update meetings with our clients to provide peace of mind that the project is being delivered on schedule and to the high standards our clients rightly expect.

How do we know if blockchain is right for us?

All our engagements begin with a complimentary consultation to explore the business proposition and the use case for blockchain. Use our contact form to send us a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Blockchain Technology

What Is Blockchain?

Blockchain is the core technology behind Bitcoin. At its heart, it is a distributed data store. Anyone who participates in the blockchain network can have their own data store that stores all of the transactions that ever happened on the network (this is also known as the distributed ledger). Entries are stored within a cryptographic chain of blocks. At every stage, the network of participants must agree to the latest block of transactions. An agreement is reached through a process of majority consensus, eliminating duplicate entries, double spending etc. This process and the cryptographic layering of the blocks make the agreed blockchain irreversible and immutable. The ‘history’ of events within the blockchain cannot be modified by any one of the participants without majority consensus from the group.

What Is A Private Blockchain?

Private (also known as permissioned and consortium) blockchains are deployed either within an organisation, or shared between a known group of participants. Private blockchains can be limited to a predefined set of participants. In this case, no one else can access the blockchain or the data residing in the blockchain. These blockchains can be secured in a similar way to securing other integrated enterprise applications (e.g. firewalls, VPN etc).

What Is A Smart Contract?

A Smart Contract is code that is deployed to the blockchain. Each smart contract contains code that can have a predefined set of inputs. Smart contracts can also store data. Following the distributed model of the blockchain, smart contracts run on every node in the blockchain, and each contract’s data is stored in every node. This data can be queried at any time. Smart Contracts can also call other smart contracts, enforce permissions, run workflow logic and perform calculations, etc. Smart contract code is executed within a blockchain transaction – so the data stored as a result of running the smart contract (i.e. the state) is part of the blockchain’s immutable ledger.

What Is A Blockchain Smart Contract App?

A blockchain smart contract app is a combination of one or more Smart Contracts, and some client code to call and present the application interface to a user. We’re developing apps using node.js, and these can be presented as web applications that run in any browser.

What About Mining?

Mining is used as a proof of work for participants in the blockchain. Whenever a block of transactions is to be agreed, every participating node attempts to ‘mine’ the block (a mathematical algorithmic process that requires extensive CPU capacity). In public blockchains, successful mining is rewarded with a cryptocurrency token.

Is Mining Relevant To Private Blockchains?

Mining, and the resulting cryptocurrency tokens may not be required in private blockchains, where the parties are already trusted (in the sense that you know who they are – we still might not trust them when it comes to attempting to modify the transaction history). Mining would simply use up costly CPU resource for no gain. Blocks could still be created and agreed by consensus without the CPU overhead of processing artificially difficult algorithms created to prevent a 51% attack.

What About Tokens?

We provide technical advice and a technology platform for start-ups running a token sale, offering our technical expertise throughout the token sale process, from white papers through to ERC-20 token distribution.