New reporting today shows that Chinese tech firm Baidu is launching a new proprietary “blockchain engine” to facilitate decentralized app development.
Baidu’s cloud computing unit released the news today.
This open-source platform is intended to allow stakeholders to build a blockchain operating system that could be used to develop the kinds of decentralized apps that are taking getting a lot of attention today.
For an in-depth look at how companies use decentralized applications or “dapps,” check out Tron and its collection of applications that it bills as efforts to build a decentralized Internet.
For instance, Justin Sun and company have launched dapps to enable various kinds of online gambling. Other dapps have more prosaic uses, such as facilitating different kinds of payments. What all of them have in common is that they rely on the decentralized consensus-based model of the blockchain for functionality.
The news from Baidu shows that big stakeholders are willing to use intelligent cloud platforms to broaden the use of blockchain in today’s financial world.
Baidu’s Blockchain Lab has specifically designed the new project with six functions in their sites – including scalable storage, high throughput, contract security audits and more. A “super chain” white paper last year goes into more detail about how this specific project is set up and what it intends to do for cryptocurrency communities.
Decentralized apps are being called part of the new Internet – in fact, blockchain itself is being called the “new Internet” now, and many investors see 2019 as the year of blockchain. That doesn’t mean that rising institutional buy-in is going to lift all cryptocurrency boats – but it does lead investors to keep a sharp eye on what large institutions and nations are doing with blockchain this year.
