From right to left facing the camera: Dr Patrick McCorry; Enuma Technologies Co-founders Antoine Cote (middle in black t-shirt) and Lionello Lunesu. With back to camera: Mathis Antony, Software Design Engineer at Enuma (in red t-shirt); Wayland Chan, Technology Director at OAX Foundation. Not in picture: David Leung, Software Design Engineer at Enuma.

Our partner Enuma Technologies hosted a blockchain VIP in their offices this week. Dr Patrick McCorry was the UK’s first PhD graduate in cryptocurrencies and has just been appointed an Assistant Professor at King’s College London. He is part of the team behind the Sprites technology that makes the OAX decentralized exchange platform different to all the others.

Patrick met with the Enuma team and Wayland Chan, the new Director of Technology at OAX Foundation, discussing the Sprites implementation on the OAX platform and sharing his views on why it’s so significant.

As we’ve described before, one of the main benefit of Sprites will be increased speed, finally making decentralized platforms able to cope with the transaction volume needed for a successful digital asset trading system. Patrick gave us some more insight into that.

In the pre-Sprites world, time delays are inevitable because dispute resolutions are happening on the blockchain. This means that whenever there’s a dispute between individuals, the entire chain is held up while it’s resolved. Imagine it as a roomful of people. In current systems, if two people disagree on a transaction, they ask the others in the room one by one to verify the facts. The more people in the room, the longer that takes. You can see how this is a real problem if digital asset trading is ever to become mainstream.

Sprites presents an innovative solution to dispute resolution when multiple state channel paths are involved; that results in a drastic reduction in the time collateral is locked up. The second improvement that Sprites offers over traditional state channels is the ability to do partial deposits and withdrawals throughout the lifespan of the channel without interrupting normal operation.

The OAX DEX platform is one of the first real world applications of Sprites, and when asked how it feels to see Enuma implementing it, Patrick said it was “awesome.” He gets emails all the time from people wanting to use Sprites in their projects, but Enuma and the OAX project stand out because we’re taking it seriously.

And he’s right — we’re serious about the project and our commitment to making digital asset trading accessible, transparent and safe for all. Sprites is a critical part of that, so it was truly inspirational to have Patrick with us in Hong Kong and hear his enthusiasm for what we’re doing!