In order to maximize the utility and interoperability of blockchain technology as a whole it is important for service providers to design their services to be blockchain agnostic from the beginning. The reason being is that the current Bitcoin infrastructure is a lot like the nation states where you have a sort of lock-in. Vender-lock in is not good for the long term evolution of blockchain technology even if it might temporarily benefit the Bitcoin network effect.

Smart wallets

Smart wallets are designed to be blockchain agnostic. Instead of the user having to trade between different kinds of coins or download multiple wallets there is one unified wallet which can allow the user to send and receive any kind of cryptocurrency or cryptoasset. This blockchain agnostic approach can limit code duplication and technical debt.

Holy transactions: is one of the first smart wallets. Holy transactions in addition to being a smart wallet is also an exchange. The flaw with holytransactions is it’s a centralized service which is not the recommended approach for long term security.

Moonstone.io is a currently in development smart wallet and in addition it will provide a truly decentralized exchange. The backend of Moonstone.io is the Bitshares blockchain which allows for the trading of BitAssets such as bitBTC, bitUSD, bitLTC, bitGLD (bitGold) and more. Moonstone.io intends to allow for trading 1:1 between bitBTC, bitUSD and other BitAssets and in addition it will in some cases even allow physical delivery such as with BitGLD.

Smart blockchains

Smart blockchains are blockchains which are reconfigurable and which can communicate with other blockchains. It is important that an “Internet of Blockchains” form if blockchain technology is going to evolve effectively. In order for this to happen blockchains must be able to communicate with other blockchains and this can happen through atomic cross chain transactions (ACCTs).

Bitshares currently is intending to be one of the first smart blockchains. The core developers are focusing on adaptability through reconfigurability and atomic cross chain transactions are already coded waiting to be enabled.

What are atomic cross chain transactions (ACCTs)?

One of the most important aspects to allow blockchain technology to scale up is to have multiple communicating chains. These communicating blockchains would form an “Internet of Blockchains” (IOBs). Examples of this would be BlockNet and SuperNet. In the end all blockchains must develop the ability to link up to each other so that transactions can flow between blockchains allowing for example a transaction to be initiated on the Bitshares blockchain and filled on the Ethereum blockchain or vice versa.  The communication between chains would make each blockchain a node in a network of blockchains and this is why blockchain agnosticism is a prudent approach for current and future developers.

References

Kruchten, P., Nord, R. L., & Ozkaya, I. (2012). Technical debt: from metaphor to theory and practice. IEEE Software, (6), 18-21.