What’s included?¶
The current prototype consists of a small amount of code that defines:
- Key data structures
- Algorithms that work with them, such as serialising, hashing, signing, and verification of the signatures.
- Three smart contracts that implement a notion of a cash claim, a basic commercial paper and a crowdfunding contract. These are simplified versions of the real things.
- Unit tests that check the algorithms do what is expected, and which verify the behaviour of the smart contracts.
- API documentation and tutorials (what you’re reading)
Some things it does not currently include but should gain later are:
- Sandboxing, distribution or publication of smart contract code
- A peer to peer network
- Database persistence
- An API for integrating external software
- A user interface for administration
- Many other things
You can browse the JIRA bug tracker.
The prototype’s goal is rapid exploration of ideas. Therefore in places it takes shortcuts that a production system would not in order to boost productivity:
- It uses a serialization framework instead of a well specified, vendor neutral protocol.
- It uses secp256r1, an obsolete elliptic curve.