The decentralized and distributed nature of blockchain technology offers a great way to create secure networks to transact and share data without a middleman. Over the past year, we have seen consistent growth in blockchain infrastructure / smart contract security; however, in parallel growth in the capabilities of malicious actors have led to major hacks due to security vulnerabilities. Theoretically, blockchains are extremely secure, but not all blockchains are created equal — the security of a blockchain and smart contracts relies on several factors, including the robustness of the underlying cryptography.

The IoTeX team is composed of PhD.s in Cryptography, Distributed Systems, and other deep tech, who are also industry veterans that have led Infrastructure Security and Cryptography teams at Google, Facebook, and Uber. As such, we are confident in our abilities to build secure infrastructure, but also understand the importance of formally verifying the security of our network and researching new methods to enhance blockchain security. This is why IoTeX is proud to announce our strategic partnership with Chengdu LianAn Technology — a formal verification company focused on blockchain and smart contract security.

“Security in the decentralized world is of utmost importance. IoTeX and LianAn will combine our technical research backgrounds and industry experience to drive innovations in security for blockchain and smart contracts.” - Xia Yang, Chengdu LianAn Technology Co-Founder

What is Chengdu LianAn Technology?

Chengdu LianAn Technology is a formal verification company focused on blockchain security, based in Chengdu, China. Founded by Professors Xia Yang and Wensheng Guo from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, the core members of the Chengdu LianAn Technology team consist of more than 20 associate professors, postdoctoral, doctoral and masters students from universities and laboratories around the world (e.g., Yale, UCLA, CSDS, UESTC). LianAn also collaborates regularly on research with the Inria, one of the world’s premier research institutions.

LianAn’s core technology is formal verification of security-critical systems, and they have provided their services to the aerospace, military, and now blockchain industries. LianAn recently launched their Verification-as-a-Service (VaaS) platform, which offers automated and robust blockchain and smart contract verification for EOS, Ethereum, and other blockchains / smart contract languages. The company is backed by Fenbushi Capital and has signed strategic partnerships with several other leaders in the blockchain industry, including Huobi, OKEx, Kucoin, and Ontology.

How will IoTeX and Chengdu LianAn Technology work together?

IoTeX is a smart contract-enabled blockchain platform that deals with highly sensitive data, meaning security is a key priority. IoTeX will leverage LianAn’s formal verification services to eliminate any security vulnerabilities related to the IoTeX root chain, sub-chains, and smart contracts. We plan to use LianAn’s services in the near future, as our next code release, Testnet Beta, will introduce smart contract capabilities on IoTeX. We look forward to incorporating LianAn’s Verification-as-a-Service (VaaS) platform and deep industry expertise to make our smart contracts both secure and easily usable. Furthermore, as we begin prototyping with our development partners, we will ensure their smart contracts are verified.

In addition to leveraging LianAn’s formal verification services, IoTeX will also work with LianAn on research for blockchain and smart contract security. One key challenge within the blockchain and security communities is achieving privacy-preserving computations in the form of smart contracts, which can be further formally verified autonomously. IoTeX looks forward to working with Chengdu LianAn Technology and other ecosystem members to combine our strengths and advance innovation in privacy and smart contracts.

About IoTeX

IoTeX is the auto-scalable and privacy-centric blockchain infrastructure for the Internet of Things (IoT). IoTeX’s global team is comprised of Ph.Ds in Cryptography, Distributed Systems, and Machine Learning, top tier engineers, and experienced ecosystem builders. IoTeX is developing several in-house innovations to push the frontier of blockchain 3.0, including a blockchains-in-blockchain architecture for heterogeneous computing, lightning fast Roll-DPoS consensus mechanism, and lightweight privacy-preserving techniques. IoTeX is bringing autonomous device coordination to the masses by “connecting the physical world, block by block.”