A month ago we announced a strategic partnership with ARK and in this article we are going to explain the motives of our partnership.

Together with our advisor Lars Rensing (CFO of ARK) we explored the world of ARK and have identified multiple opportunities that will benefit both projects.

Decentralization

As most of you know, Blockport will have a hybrid-decentralized architecture that allows for decentralized storage of funds on multiple blockchains. To provide different wallets access to the Blockport platform, we will need efficient protocols that allow us to listen to and transfer value between chains.

Together with its community, ARK has developed the ACES project, which connects multiple blockchains and allows for value transfers between them. Therefore, we’re exploring the possibilities of integrating ARK’s blockchain services.

Feasibility of ACES for Blockport

The Ark Contract Execution Services (ACES) project provides us with the ability to react to transactions on a variety of blockchains by exposing an API that allows us to efficiently listen to (transaction) events.

This architecture enables us to set up transfers of value between blockchains by implementing handlers to these events. It also allows for a rather flexible integration in terms of exchange rates and interoperability between services, meaning that Blockport can adopt ACES inside of the exchange infrastructure that we are currently realising without heavy changes to our architecture.

The current state

ACES currently has a working proof of concept that we can use to further investigate our implementation of the hybrid-decentralized exchange scheduled for Q4 2018 / Q1 2019. Our partnership enables us to work together efficiently and allows for a synergy that both projects can benefit from.

Though a solution to a complex problem like cross chain transactions has yet to be proven, and will take quite a lot of prototyping and stress testing, we believe ACES could provide us with the necessary framework that we need to further develop our core product.

More information on the ACES project can be found here.