We are excited to share with our community the launch of DxChain Testnet and SDK, named Alps Mountains, after 3 months of development and testing since the release of Testnet Beta - Andes Mountains in the end of September 2018.

The launch of Testnet and SDK has again showcased the DxChain research and development team’s capability of delivering the project on time, and implementing the distributed storage powered by blockchain as promised. Moreover, the DxChain Testnet SDK will provide blockchain engineers, researchers and DxChain’s partners with solutions to data storage and file management in a distributed and secure system.

Alps Mountains Key Breakthroughs

In the previous release, Testnet Beta (Andes Mountains), DxChain introduced major functions including transaction, file storage, a block browser, and started the scalability testing. Please find more details on our official blog

After the release of Testnet Beta, DxChain team continued focusing on the development of the data storage features. In a nutshell, features and performance of the DxChain Testnet are significantly improved in this release. Key breakthroughs of this release include:

1. Fully supports transaction types for storage contracts: In the new version, DxChain testnet is able to support three transaction types for storage contracts, including form contract, revise contract and storage proof contracts. All nodes on chain can work as either storage clients or providers to get involved in the distributed data storage service.

2. Finalized the storage proof algorithm: In the previous release, the initial storage proof and Merkle Tree algorithm were implemented. In this new release, the algorithm is heavily tested and optimized for validating data storage and building trustable storage, thus is finalized and beyond challenge. Now the DxChain Testnet can complete the verification without the raw data with high efficiency. As a result, we are able to keep high data integrity with comparatively low redundency.

3. Implemented the provider auto selection algorithm: The provider auto selection algorithm was redesigned to meet the demand of provider selection for multiple needs. The algorithm takes into consideration of financial metrics, storage reliability, and network bandwidth, making an optimized decision on selecting qualified candidates.

4. Stabilized storage contract handshake process: In this release, our team focused on the handshake protocol in the storage contract negotiation and revision, improved the stability and efficiency in both normal and abnormal communication scenarios.

5. Provides privacy protection: Information security with encryption-sharding mechanism for data encryption can protect user’s privacy. And data stored on DxChain Testnet are protected using public and private key signature technique to verify the proprietorship.

6. Performance optimized for file uploading: Compared to the last version, the performance has been increased by 54% in efficiency and 60% in memory usage for file uploading.

Testnet Application Products Overview

In addition to adding features and improving performance of the testnet, we also updated new features of the DxChain Testnet Explorer, and released the DxChainPy SDK and a brand new product - DxBox.

In this release, we improved the function of the DxChain Testnet Explorer, and added some new features. For example, detailed information about all types of contracts and transactions are searchable, including the file contract id, initial settings, current status, etc.

You can find out various possible status of the storage contracts:
(1) Ongoing, means the lifespan of a storage contract, from initialization to expiration;
(2) Verified, means the contract has been verified by blockchain and the storage provider has got the reward from storing the data;
(3) Vacant, means the contract is established but there is no file uploaded by the client, therefore, there is no need for the providers to submit the storage proof;
(4) Failed, means the provider is not able to submit the storage proof before the contract expires.

DxChainPy is a Python implementation toolkit for DxChain API, and it marks the debut of DxChain SDK. Currently, the following chain data can be obtained from DxChainPy: network status, consensus information, wallet balance, miner status, provider settings and client details; while operations below are also supported: uploading, downloading and deleting files. From now on, by using DxChain API, developers are able to query on chain data and use features including transactions and file storage to build their own applications based on DxChain Testnet. Please visit our official website and GitHub for more details.

Along with the release of DxChainPy SDK, we also launched a new product - DxBox.

DxBox is a decentralized blockchain storage product powered by DxChain testnet, and it can provide secure & private cloud storage for users all over the world.

According to the design of DxChain, economic incentive mechanisms are used to attract more nodes to share their idle storage capacity and to become the storage miners. In other words, the storage consumers will pay DX tokens to storage providers as rewards. At present, since all nodes are hosted by DxChain project team, we provide free qualifications for our community members and supporters to try out the blockchain storage through using DxBox. That means you can have your own secure and decentralized blockchain storage at no cost, and experience the blockchain storage capability provided by DxChain! Try it out here: https://explorer.dxchain.com/register/

More Launches and Further Challenges Await

In 2018, we released the Testnest Alpha and Beta versions in June and September respectively. The DxChain Testnet and SDK - Alps Mountains has been ready to launch in the end of December 2018, however, taking into account the new year holidays, we decided to officially release this version on January 7, 2019.

According to DxChain’s technical road map, we will enhance the data storage capacity before starting the development of the data computing features. DxChain has designed a “chains-on-chain” architecture to address the issues of data storage, computing and privacy protection. To be more specific, there will be a master chain, used for operating blockchain transactions while coordinating with two side chains - the computing chain and data chain. The computing chain is used for parallel computing applications to process large volumes of data, which eventually powers machine learning and business intelligence, while the data chain is used for storing data, protecting users’ privacy, and supporting the computing chain.

After the release of DxChain testnet and the data storage features, we will continue our development and follow our schedule to advance the development progress. The next phase of DxChain development will focus on supporting smart contract and solidarity based economy, and building the programming interface between storage and blockchain system. The next release is projected in the end of 2019 Q1.

More efforts are being devoted to product development! We look forward to sharing with you more good news soon. Stay tuned!

About DxChain

DxChain is the world's first decentralized big data and machine learning network powered by a computing-centric blockchain. DxChain is a public chain, it designs a revolutionary “Chains-on-chain” architecture to make blockchain function as a computing unit - data storage and computing, so that the technical characteristics of blockchain can be truly extended to a broader field, promoting the next generation of technology from the bottom. For more information, please visit www.dxchain.com.