Release of OpenST Protocol v0.9.4

Introducing OpenST TokenHolder Contracts, TokenRules Contracts, Token Rules, and OpenST.js libraries

OST blockchain infrastructure empowers new economies for mainstream businesses and emerging DApps. OST leads development of the OpenST Protocol, a framework for tokenizing businesses.

Today we released OpenST Protocol v0.9.4 — a major milestone release in our Blockchain Infrastructure workstream. OpenST 0.9.4 provides a developer framework for user-friendly wallets, mass-market key management, and for designing on-chain token rules. OST will make use of many of the features in 0.9.4 in our Developer Tools workstream to deliver exceptional user experiences to our partners as they rollout their Branded Token economies powered by OST. The OST 2017–2021 project roadmap across all workstreams is also refreshed below to provide project context, with the only changes from prior version being to reflect our achieving the recent milestones.

OpenST Protocol v0.9.4 is the 5th major OpenST Protocol release:

OpenST Protocol 0.9.0 released in Q4 2017 presented a proof for staking crypto assets on Ethereum towards minting Branded Tokens on public sidechains.

OpenST Protocol 0.9.1, released in Q4 2017, enabled software developers to build applications on OpenST and to further the Protocol.

OpenST Protocol 0.9.2, released in Q1 2018, enabled token transfers between BT holders and provided REST APIs for OpenST.

OpenST Protocol 0.9.3, released in Q3 2018, decentralized the Gateway between Ethereum and OpenST auxiliary chains, enabling any actor to move ownership across the gateway, transforming value tokens on Ethereum into utility tokens on the utility chains and back.

OpenST Protocol release v0.9.4 introduces TokenHolder Contracts, TokenRules Contracts, and Token Rules.

TokenHolder Contracts enable mass-market apps to enable their end-users to own and transfer tokens without requiring end-users to directly manage their private crypto keys. This will enable user-friendly wallets and token transfer experiences to be deployed for mainstream apps running on OpenST.

Ephemeral keys are introduced to sign transactions from within applications without requiring the user to manually sign every action. Ephemeral keys are temporary session-based keys that can be authorized by the user. The diagram below shows a user activating an ephemeral private key from within an app. For instance, the end-user could activate an ephemeral key upon login and 2FA verification.

With his ephemeral key, the user can request the TokenHolder Contract to call on a rule on his behalf. An example app-specific rule could be to transfer tokens whenever the user wants to upvote or clap for another user’s post.

The TokenHolder contract also allows the user to login across multiple devices. This facilitates redundancy (e.g. when a device is lost or compromised) and enables recovery mechanisms.

The addition of the TokenRules contract in OpenST v0.9.4 represents the decentralization of rule design and allows apps to design on-chain rules that map to their business logic. An example of an on-chain token rule could be that users cannot immediately cash-out free tokens received via airdrop from the company, rather the rule could be that those airdrop tokens must be used within the economy at least once before users could cash them out.

OpenST.js & openst-js-examples

OpenST Protocol v0.9.4 also includes OpenST.js, a library that helps developers integrate the functionality of the OpenST contracts in their (D)Apps.

To support integration of OpenST.js by developers, we have also provided openst-js-examples, an example usage of OpenST.js where we walk developers through registering rules, adding users, adding wallets to users, revoking ephemeral keys and other functionality in the context of a token economy. In order to make the best use of openst.js, we recommend working through the example to familiarize yourself with the functionality and usage of the library.

openst-js-examples is an end-to-end guided experience through OpenST.js where the execution of each step produces a response, which then feeds into the subsequent steps.

The economy setup includes deploying a Token, the rules associated with the transactions in the economy, and the TokenRules contract which enables the business rules defined in the Rule contracts.

We invite developers to dive into OpenST Protocol v0.9.4 on Github.