Releasing our alpha to the public has been a primary focus since we started the token sale. That day is coming soon and we’d like to give you a sneak preview of what to expect. Meanwhile our token sale continues until Aug 16th.

Features and UI subject to change.

Features of the BlockCAT Alpha

The alpha release will provide two contracts ready for public use, with two more scheduled for an update coming shortly after.

Alpha Release v0.1.0

Security Deposit: Receive and hold deposits for equipment rentals or lease agreements.

Hodl: Lock up Ether until a specified date.

Alpha Release v0.2.0

Joint Payments: Start a payment which can be funded by multiple users.

Distributed Payments: Transfer funds between multiple accounts in predefined ways.

Our goal with the alpha release is to show the future of visual smart contracts, while also providing an immediate use for the community. We recognize that some contracts will require a more widespread adoption of Blockchain technology before they reach full potential. So with that in mind, we’d like to demonstrate how we envision smart contracts in the hands of everyday users.

Security Deposit — Smart contracts of the future

Imagine a local club who needs to collect security deposits for their equipment rentals on a regular basis. Receiving cash requires considerable overhead to record all the information and a safe place to store the cash. Current online solutions such as PayPal can have unreasonable fees for small transactions, and it mixes all the money together so you still have the overhead of managing funds, recording who paid and how much.

The security deposit smart contract solves all these problems. The owner pays a small fee to deploy the contract. Now users can send deposit payments which are recorded (with their name) and verified on the blockchain. Once the equipment is returned, the owner calls the contract to refund the user automatically.

Hodl — Smart contracts for today

The hodl contract is a favorite within our team. We’re all crypto enthusiasts and we’ve all experienced that internal struggle of emotions over when to sell. With the hodl contract, you pick the exact date you’d like to withdraw your Ether, the contract keeps it secure until that day. It’s simple and safe.

There’s a few other hodl contracts out there, though none we’ve found that provide a simple visual interface, and that’s what BlockCAT is all about.

Alpha Restrictions

While we’ve done extensive unit testing and review on the security of these contracts, we have decided to restrict the value of Ether which can be contained in each contract to reduce the impact of any potential breach in security. Most contracts will be limited to 0.1ETH for the duration of the alpha.

Deployment Fees

We’re setting the fee to deploy contracts for the alpha to be extremely small, within the ballpark of 5–10 cents USD, paid in CAT. There is also no fee to interact with contracts after deployment (aside from the standard gas costs the Ethereum network requires). These low fees are due to the restrictions placed on the alpha. The alpha fees will not reflect the price of the final release.

CAT Token

The CAT Token is an integral part of the BlockCAT platform. As such you’ll require CAT to deploy live contracts during the alpha, though anyone is able to explore most of our interface without needing CAT or Ether.

It’s a common misconception that Ether and Tokens are functionally identical and therefore critics will argue that Ether should be used in place of ERC20 Tokens; this simply isn’t the case.

One of the functional differences is the ability for Tokens to be pre-approved for spending on your behalf. This means you can give permission for BlockCAT to take fees in CAT (up to a specified maximum) for deployment of your contracts and still store all your CAT in a personal wallet you own private keys for. This permission can also be revoked at any time.

If you’d like to learn about some other important features that ERC20 Tokens provide you can read our FAQ question & answer on the topic.