South Korea's first public blockchain project has secured $3 million in pre-ICO funding. BlockchainOS built BOSCoin to provide an alternative to Ethereum, targeting what the company views as flaws in
South Korea's first public blockchain project has secured $3 million in pre-ICO funding. BlockchainOS built BOSCoin to provide an alternative to Ethereum, targeting what the company views as flaws in how Ethereum handles smart contracts.
Ethereum relies on a Turing-complete programming language for smart contracts. Before you execute a contract, you can't predict what it will do. Turing-complete systems allow for undecidable outcomes—code can behave in unexpected ways that developers don't anticipate. Ethereum added its gas system to charge for computational operations, but the DAO hack showed this didn't prevent major exploits.
BOSCoin takes another route. It uses a domain-specific language instead of Turing-complete code, written in plain terms anyone can read. Its smart contracts, called Trust Contracts, are built using Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Timed Automata Language (TAL). This semantic web approach lets users verify what a contract does before the code runs.
The platform includes a Congress Network of node operators who propose changes and vote on improvements. Approved proposals receive funding from a Commons Budget.
"BOScoin is expected to be a platform that carries real world businesses that actually run on the platform instead of just being ideal for only living on speculative values and perish over time," said Changki Park, CEO of BlockchainOS.
BOSCoin launches with two companion applications. Stardaq is a prediction market for celebrity popularity. Users stake BOScoins on whether specific celebrities' popularity indexes rise or fall, and the team has completed an alpha version. Delicracy is a decision-making tool for organizations where users bet on proposals, operating like the Augur prediction market. BOSCoin's alpha releases March 31, 2017.
