QuChain Technology received RMB 17.5 million in financing from Junbao Communications, Zhejiang University Network New, and Synyard to build an independent and controllable alliance chain cloud platform

On August 31, 2016, Hangzhou QuChain Technology received a total of RMB 17.5 million in financing from Junbao Communications, Zhejiang University Network New and Xinyada. QuChain Technology focuses on the research and development of blockchain underlying technology. The core team all graduated from Zhejiang University and have doctoral degrees. The core technology of QuChain Technology is an independent and controllable domestic alliance chain cloud platform, serving many fields such as finance, e-commerce, international shipping, copyright protection, real estate transactions, and health care.

Insigma and Synyard, which participated in this investment, are both listed companies on the A-share main board of China and important financial industry solution and service providers in China. Lianlian Yintong Electronic Payment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Junbao Communication, is a leading enterprise in the Internet finance and mobile payment industries, and has expanded its competitive advantage through strategic investment in blockchain core technology companies.

The Hyperchain alliance chain cloud service platform provides enterprise-level blockchain network solutions for the blockchain technology needs of enterprises, government agencies and industrial alliances. It supports enterprises to quickly deploy, expand and configure blockchain networks based on existing cloud platforms, and conduct real-time visual monitoring of the operating status of blockchain networks.

The QuChain team was very low-key in the market before the announcement of this round of financing. In fact, the QuChain team started the preliminary research on blockchain technology in April and May last year. Li Wei, CEO of QuChain, said,

"We are a team from Zhejiang University. We have a 15-year cooperation foundation with State Street Bank. We had a technical exchange last year and they hoped that we could invest some technical strength (in blockchain research). So we have been doing research work all last year."

The QuChain team really decided to get involved in the blockchain field through a company in early 2016. In the early days of its establishment, QuChain made considerable progress in external cooperation. Together with its partners, it completed the development and construction of a digital bill prototype system based on blockchain. At the same time, it also reached cooperation intentions with other well-known domestic commercial banks, securities companies, and exchanges, and some projects have already begun to land.

Li Wei said frankly,

"Now we can see that domestic banks, exchanges, securities companies, etc. are actually actively exploring, and some projects are ready to be implemented or to do some technical verification. There are many demands, but there is indeed a lack of a solid enterprise technology platform in the market to provide services for these urgent needs. Therefore, the most critical thing is to build a good underlying support platform."

The QuChain team can be called a pure technical team. Currently, there is only one non-technical person in the team of nearly 30 people. The management team is also a PhD graduate from Zhejiang University. In addition to CEO Li Wei and CTO Li Qilei, the others are responsible for the underlying platform development, basic algorithm research and development, and application development.

Core technology is the first competitive advantage

The product features of QuChain are very clear. The cloud platform, core technology, and management platform constitute the complete product provided by QuChain. Core technology is the most competitive point of QuChain. Since the team has many years of experience in cloud computing, the cloud platform construction technology is very solid. The management platform that integrates installation, management, monitoring, and debugging also strives to be user-friendly and easy to use.

Li Wei introduced that the core technology of QuChain is divided into four parts:

In terms of consensus algorithm research and implementation, the RBFP consensus algorithm adopted by QuChain is a variation of the current PBFT consensus algorithm. PBFT is the consensus algorithm currently used by alliance chains, but there are relatively few truly rigorous implementations. The QuChain team downloaded all dozens of papers from the early 1990s to 2015, and conducted systematic study and detailed analysis. They found that even the Hyperledger project only implemented the 2002 paper on the PBFT consensus algorithm. After many years, there is still room for improvement. Therefore, QuChain will first implement the classic PBFT consensus algorithm, and make further improvements on this basis, and the RBFT consensus algorithm will be further improved in reliability and performance.

In terms of authority control, QuChain has adopted an access mechanism based on SVP. The concept of voting rights is introduced. In addition to the right to keep accounts, each node may also have the right to vote. Nodes with voting rights constitute a parliament. The joining of any new node must go through a process of acceptance or rejection by nodes with voting rights, making the entire entry mechanism controllable. And this entry is not centralized, but decentralized or multi-centered, to ensure that it is both democratic and controllable.

The third point is the hierarchical encryption technology based on AHRE transaction data. The QuChain team found in the communication with banks and other institutions that institutions have an urgent need for confidentiality, and now Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Hyperledger have not solved the confidentiality problem well. Therefore, QuChain has adopted the hierarchical encryption technology based on AHRE transaction data to ensure that during the transaction process, only the parties involved in the transaction can see the transaction details, while other parties involved in the transaction can only see that the transaction has occurred, but they are not clear about the specific transaction details.

The fourth technical point is to improve the performance of virtual machines. Currently, more blockchain technology companies are focusing on the consensus algorithm mechanism, and have not yet reached the virtual machine level, because the virtual machine is not a performance bottleneck at present. However, the QuChain team found through reading the Ethereum code that the performance of the virtual machine can actually be greatly improved. Ethereum's virtual machine is implemented based on the stack. It only needs to be rewritten or improved. In theory, the performance can be improved by one to two orders of magnitude. The QuChain team believes that when the consensus algorithm is greatly improved, the virtual machine may become the next performance bottleneck. Therefore, improving the performance of the virtual machine in advance is also a very core technical point.

Through a whole set of technological upgrades, QuChain has formed a foundation based on mature cloud computing technology, lightweight container technology and distributed management technology; with the accounting node access mechanism using SVP, the consensus mechanism based on RBFT, the hierarchical encryption of transaction data based on AHRE and the smart contract execution engine HyperEVM as the core; with the enterprise-level management and control platform as the entrance, it is a basic technology platform for alliance chains with complete functions and high performance.

Since the beginning of this year, several blockchain startups have been favored by listed companies. Under the guidance of the general direction of financial technology, with more capital injection, the process of blockchain becoming well-known to the public and commercial application will also be accelerated.