Blocko Blockchain Startup’s Coinstack in South Korea is Booming, AERGO Transition Underway

South Korea has received a great deal of attention for its crypto market. The country’s crypto markets have overcome regulatory issues, the enterprise blockchain space has gained momentum, and many of the country’s citizens support the technology. But, even with such developments, the blockchain sector’s development itself has been a bit quiet. Blocko, the country’s largest blockchain startup, has not received recognition and at this point, the platform is running a more well-known platform, Coinstack, which offers blockchain-as-a-service so that it can help companies integrate the technology into their current system. Coinstack is in the process of transitioning to AERGO, a new platform that will likely provide more publicity.

Blocko is not only focused on theoretical technology – it has applications that are being used by over 25 million individuals worldwide through companies such as Samsung, Lotte, Hyndai, and Credit Suisse. However, the company’s business-facing focus has caused it to not reach its full potential like other platforms have.

The good news is that the platform’s AERGO project and its support for community involvement, things may be changing. AERGO promises to fill the gap between permissioned and public chains and to support various smart contracts, programming language, and consensus mechanisms.

Blocko’s main goal is to promote easier development of enterprise blockchains by making them easier to run and to connect to existing infrastructure. The first stage of the processes focuses on private chains for businesses and it was through Coinstack. Even though the platform experienced success in multiple user cases, the public-private ERGO chain may phase out.

As for Coinstack, its cork blockchain technology is not new, but its approach to development is. The platform markets itself as a “middleware,” which is a bridge technology between an enterprise’s existing infrastructure blockchain technology and dapps. Those who use Coinstack will not only receive access to a blockchain network, but a Software Development Kit (SDK) as well. This makes it easier for developers to build with it and to support APIs that make it easier to move data around. AERGO is poised to add some stellar new features even with those features, Blocko and Coinstack are in a good position because they have been providing accessible and secure solutions to companies that tend to be cautious about approaching an untested technology.

There are 25 million users on Coinstack and its strategy seems to have been working well for it. The platform’s portfolio includes:

• Lotte Card
• Korea Exchange
• Samsung SD/NExledger
• Voting in Gyeonggi-do

The platform does not reveal much about its technical information because it is a proprietary platform. Generally though, the SDK is developed for a full-stack blockchain solution that branches off the Bitcoin protocol and Ethereum Virtual Machine. The platform also supports programming languages such as Java and Python and the infrastructure varies from application to application. At the point that it is in one place, the Coinstack middleware makes it easier to monitor and develop.

AERGO has been developed to replace and expand Coinstack’s capabilities. Coinstack is a mainly closed-off and custom-built platform. Dissimilarly, AERGO will be open source, it will feature its own chains, hub marketplace, and it will have features that are designed for enterprise use. The platform uses Coinstack as a base, but at the end of the day, it will appear much different when it appears on the market. The platform features a laundry list of interesting post that when combined with Blocko’s previous track record, it shows a positive picture for the platform’s future.

AERGO ultimately hopes to be like Coinstack and to offer businesses the opportunity to build blockchain solutions and to provide an open ecosystem allowing for the development of new technologies and to scale the technology however they like. The project features three specific components: a public chain that acts as the backbone, a blockchain hosting service for building and developing custom chains, and a marketplace to exchange software and computing assets.

• AERGO Chain

  The AERGO Chain is a public chain for the project that runs on a delegated proof-of-stake (DFoS) consensus mechanism that connects everything else built on the AERGO network, from enterprise blockchains to dApps. The platform’s most significant selling point is AERGOSQL, a contract engine that uses the SQL programming language.

• AERGO Hub

  The AERGO Hub is a blockchain hosting service that is easy to use and that has a layer of accessibility. The public interface allows other independent blockchains to be built and deployed on the network. Like Coinstack, the chains can be custom-built to be fit-for-purpose, rather than having to follow the same consensus mechanisms as the main chain. The platform supports both RAFT and PBT. Further, the platform is similar to the cloud web services, as it includes development tools and supports those who are interested in building and controlling their own product, without forks or updates.

• AERGO Marketplace

  AERGO Hub allows users to access the marketplace, which is where programs, services, and resources are available to the AERGO ecosystem. It is more than a third-party system for developers to sell their software – it also has a way to buy and sell computing resources and it allows for broad development of an ecosystem.

Overall, AERGO may be a prime replacement for Coinstack. Companies that want to upgrade their existing Coinstack platform to the new version may be able to do so without disruption and it even seems to be backward compatible. Though Coinstack has been primarily for private permission chains with limited functionality, the platform is also open-source and it has a dapp structure that is accommodating and allows anything to be put on the blockchain. The accessible quality for developers and compatibility can be scaled as much as needed, without pumping against the limits that make the public blockchain less practical.

As for Blockco, it has received a good amount of venture capital funds and it is gathering revenue from other ventures as well. As a result, it does not need to stake a great deal on an ICO. Though the platform may at some point start an ICO, there has been no official word on the project. Further, any community contributions will be reviewed by the platform on a case-by-case basis and applicants will be subject to a KYC/AML procedure. And, two large markets, such as the US and China, are not permitted to participate because of regulatory issues.

Once Blocko is established, native tokens will be required for smart contract execution and for performance of other options on the AERGO Chain. As a result, there will be some real-world value. It is not known how many companies are running on Coinstack and how many of them will run on AERGO, but the community initiatives and backwards-compatibility may indicate that the project has a high chance of having enough big names associated with it to provide it some traction.

AERGO’s official mainnet will be online in Q1 of 209, and the Hub and Marketplace will come in Q3 of 2019.