Asia Blockchain Review recently spoke to Laurent Dedenis, CEO and Co-Founder of Chainstack, about how the platform’s user-friendly interface and rich set of APIs (application programming interfaces) can help businesses implement blockchain technology for their use cases. With Chainstack’s Blockchain Platform as a Service (BPaaS), companies can explore multiple, leading enterprise protocols and consensus algorithms, all within a matter of minutes through a single control panel.

Asia Blockchain Review: Can you tell us about the idea behind Chainstack and your short- and long-term goals?

Laurent Dedenis: Chainstack was built to radically simplify how developers and businesses can embark on experimenting and scaling blockchain technology. Infrastructure is crucial, particularly in a stable, robust, enterprise-ready decentralized solution. Until recently, the complexity of DLT (distributed ledger technology), has drastically hampered its adoption. 

Chainstack is a multi-cloud, multi-protocol Blockchain Platform as a Service that empowers enterprises to spin up production-ready blockchain infrastructure in minutes. Developers can worry less about building and maintaining their networks. Instead, they can focus on building meaningful applications. By making it easy for anyone to start experimenting with blockchain, the barrier to entry has been drastically reduced. This way, we’re helping drive innovation and adoption within the ecosystem. We’re also helping enterprises grow and scale consortiums, making it easy for them to harness the power of network effects. 

We are committed to simplifying the lives of developers. We want to help developers and enterprises alike realize blockchain’s key benefits, so that we can realize a blockchain-enabled future.

ABR: Can you tell us about Chainstack’s roadmap and milestones?

LD: We launched the Chainstack platform in late April 2019. Currently, we support the deployment of Ethereum, MultiChain, and Quorum protocols in any cloud providers. Within the next few months, we also plan to support Corda, Ethereum 2.0, and Hyperledger Fabric protocols and deployment onto Private Cloud. Chainstack will continue to roll out new features and support for more protocol and deployment options. 

Our goal is to be as universal as possible to cater to the diversity in enterprise requirements and needs. Chainstack architecture provides security, reliability, and scalability so you’ll also see a lot of enhancement in these areas in the next few months.

ABR: What are some of your successful use cases?

LD: We have a fast-growing number of developers working daily with Chainstack. Several hundred have registered since early May. We also see traction with DApps (Decentralized Applications) and system integrators like Fujitsu and others that basically use Chainstack to experiment and prototype. It is really cool to see progress in both these market segments, as they are key to building our ecosystem, and we are onboarding new partners every day.

ABR: What are the challenges that you face in developing platforms for clients?

LD: Both public and private permissioned blockchain markets are not mature yet, and you see a lot of changes in the focus and needs of the enterprise and partner community. These are normal at this stage, so it is important for us to listen to our early adopters carefully in order to understand market needs and anticipate directions. 

This is also a fast-growing market. More and more people are involved with blockchain every day in different respects, and they also bring new ideas and deliver innovative answers and solutions. We must work with them to fine-tune the Chainstack vision as well.

ABR: How does Chainstack stand out from other similar platforms?

LD: Our user-friendly interface is a key component of the design of the platform. However, the foundation and the architecture was built to address the reliability, security, and scalability that enterprises need to operate blockchain in production. As I mentioned earlier, we are both cloud and blockchain agnostic because we believe businesses will all use several blockchain protocols in the future in separate infrastructures. Chainstack is the answer addressing both future management and orchestration challenges.

ABR: What are some of the most common mistakes developers make with user experience design? How important is UX design for blockchain technology?

LD: As an underlying technology layer, the true test for when we’ve hit true adoption is when it isn’t “obvious”. As complex and novel blockchain technology is, the user-facing aspect of DApps should still remain relatively intuitive. 

To give a commonly cited example of the internet, a person does not need to be able to understand how the internet works even if he/she uses it every day. UX still remains a significant challenge that needs to be addressed in the blockchain space.

ABR: What is the importance of the evolution of trust in relation to the blockchain community?

LD: Blockchain is about creating a new kind of trust. This trust is digital, verifiable, and immutable, and that is the true innovation! But as people and businesses, we need to learn how to work with this new trust and changing perceptions takes time.

ABR: In your opinion, what is driving the implementation of blockchain among Singaporean businesses?

LD: With Singapore being one of the most competitive economies in the world, it is no surprise that the city-state is a hotspot for blockchain tech and other emerging technologies. Singapore is also a key economic player in a very fragmented geographical area (many countries, many rules and regulations) so we are ideally positioned to leverage the benefits of the network effect together with the adoption of blockchain technology, with the government playing a crucial role in encouraging innovation and building the ecosystem locally.

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