Source: Aesthetic Integration

Aesthetic Integration, a London-based fintech startup which applies formal verification to analyse safety and fairness of algorithms in financial markets, is today announcing at Devcon2, the launch of Imandra Contracts, the world’s first platform using this technique for blockchain-backed smart contracts.

The new cloud-based platform will be used initially by Ethereum, a decentralised blockchain app platform that runs smart contracts. Aesthetic Integration will be showcasing the platform to media, software developers and businesses attending the Devcon2 conference as part of International Blockchain Week, in Shanghai on Tuesday, 20 October at 10:45am CT.

Imandra Contracts uses recent advances in artificial intelligence, computer science and mathematics to bring unprecedented rigour to the electronic financial markets and other industries, by providing improved transparency to the development and regulation of smart contracts. The platform will help users to understand what a smart contract does, why it does it, and what the potential risks are; thereby enabling them to identify and fix anomalies in the financial algorithms and to protect businesses and markets against negative impacts before they can take effect. The platform also enables users to review contract designs and algorithms, including those hosted on third-party and decentralised smart contract platforms and apps, such as Ethereum, to ensure that they meet the agreed specifications; do not include any unwanted bugs and glitches; and are complaint to relevant industry regulations.

“The security breach faced by The DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organisation), which used the Ethereum Blockchain, highlights the urgent need for a more rigorous analysis of smart contracts in financial services,” said Dr Grant Passmore, co-founder and co-chief executive of Aesthetic Integration. “The lesson of The DAO is clear: Smart contract development must be approached rigorously with engineering discipline, more akin to building a safety-critical control algorithm than building a web app. Other safety-critical industries such as avionics and hardware manufacturing already rely on formal verification to make their algorithms safe. As our mainstream engagement with Blockchain increases, so too does the need for safety protocols to vet the algorithms being created.”

Aesthetic Integration’s other formal verification solutions are Imandra Markets and Imandra Venues. Imandra Markets is a cloud-based ecosystem for client-facing algorithm specifications that simplifies the process of designing, testing and compliance for trading systems. Imandra Venues analyses regulatory properties of trading venues, setting a new standard for transparency and stability of exchanges and dark pools following the recent increase in fines and glitches, which have highlighted the costly nature of unknown mistakes in algorithmic designs.

Aesthetic Integration will be launching a pre-sale of discounted access to Imandra Contracts, giving early adopters access to the platform from the first week of October. Users will be able to review and analyze smart contracts designs remotely from a range of mobile devices.