Singapore — February 6, 2018 — Blockchain startup XinFin officially launched its proprietary hybrid blockchain protocol XDC and simultaneously announced the public sale of its native utility token XDCE. According to the official press release, the XDC protocol is positioned as the first hybrid network architecture specifically designed for enterprise-grade global trade and financial markets, aiming to bridge the gap between traditional financial systems and digital assets.
XDC Protocol: Blending Public and Private Blockchains
XinFin stated that the XDC protocol is built on a fork of the Ethereum enterprise consortium chain Quorum, employing a two-tier consensus mechanism: a PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance)-derived consensus between nodes at the base layer, and a stake-based rule set governing node participation. The network maintains both a private state and a public state. The private state ensures sensitive financial data remains secure, while the public state provides transparency and verifiability. This hybrid architecture allows the XDC protocol to comply with local laws and regulations, and it can function purely as a messaging layer for existing approved payment mechanisms.
XinFin’s CTO Karan Bharadwaj noted in a statement: “The XDC protocol was architected with real-world applications in mind, offering high security, scalability and negligible transaction costs. It is highly compatible with the Ethereum network and supports smart contracts. Additionally, an IoT layer on top of the protocol enables real-time state changes to be recorded on-chain.”
Token Sale and Fundraising Progress
XinFin completed a private sale round in July–August 2017, raising over US$1.5 million, which was used to build the XDC protocol and the first decentralized application, TradeFinex. The token offered in the public sale, XDCE, is an ERC20 standard utility token. Holders can run XDC masternodes to access the protocol and its subnetworks. Alex Mathbeck, Head of Marketing at XinFin, commented: “The major hurdles for mainstream adoption of the blockchain ecosystem are the power-intensive mining process, highly congested trustless networks, security, and scalability. The XDC protocol is designed to address these challenges.”
First Application: TradeFinex Platform
XinFin’s first distributed application, TradeFinex.org (currently in beta), has been launched. The platform provides a smart contract user interface for global trade and finance using the XDC protocol. TradeFinex aims to help enterprises and policymakers minimize inefficiencies in a market covering up to US$27 trillion in annual global infrastructure and international trade. The platform was inaugurated at the 2nd Global Summit on P2P Digital Asset Systems in India and is being extended to leading trade associations, financial institutions, and regulators worldwide.
The XinFin team confirmed that it has completed more than six proof-of-concept (PoC) projects. Proceeds from the current token sale will be used to expand these PoCs into sizeable pilot projects with enterprises and institutions around the world, as well as to fund ecosystem development and institutional masternode deployment. Moving forward, XinFin plans to onboard global alliances and developer communities to build disruptive applications on the XDC protocol.