BlueYard raises $120 million to launch Interstellar Database (IPDB) to add blockchain features to big data

BlueYard Capital held its first Decentralized & Encrypted event earlier this month, where the Berlin-based venture capital firm launched the Interplanetary Database (IPDB), a blockchain database that can be used for decentralized world computers. BlueYard has raised more than $120 million in seed and Series A funding. Many industry elites dedicated to researching a safer and more decentralized Internet participated in the event, including the famous Edward Snowden, who gave a closing speech at the event.

BlueYard Capital provides a free and anonymous decentralized system by borrowing from the failures of the Internet. They have decided to create IPDB for the Internet. Ultimately, computing infrastructure will not be owned or controlled by any single entity. Resources will be shared among participants. Individuals will control their own information and creations, not third-party institutions.

IPDB consists of two parts: a decentralized database network and a non-profit association that the network can use to gather members. IPDB will be based on BigchainDB's technology. IPDB adds the characteristics of blockchain to the big data database - decentralized control, immutability, and the creation and transfer of assets. By relying on a big data database, IPDB can achieve scale that other blockchains cannot. Its network will be composed of nodes called 'gatekeepers'. Each gatekeeper runs a verification node to verify transactions sent by users.

Initially, BlueYard hopes to apply IPDB to the fields of intellectual property, identity, financial technology, energy and logistics, as well as many unimagined applications.

Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures (USV) said at the event that decentralized applications are still in the early stages of development. It's like the Internet in 1993. People don't know what the future will be, but they know it's going to be significant.

BlueYard Capital said they know that various technological achievements have experienced problems - including Bitcoin and the Internet, so management will be the top priority of the IPDB Foundation. The foundation's model is a traditional volunteer association. There are several advantages to this. It provides a legal personality, which provides many legal advantages. This association can also spend time building policies and procedures, which will be implemented through code when the association transitions to a DAO model.

The core part of the IPDB Foundation is the 'gatekeeper' organization. Gatekeepers can carry out the mission of the association by running nodes and are ultimately responsible for their own management. They elect the board of directors and vote on whether gatekeepers should be added or removed. To avoid being driven by financial interests, more than half of the 'gatekeepers' must be from non-profit or public interest organizations. To avoid becoming a victim of bad laws in a certain country, the number of gatekeepers from a certain country cannot exceed half. More importantly, all gatekeepers must be committed to creating a decentralized Internet.

In order to prevent the organization from sticking to its original traditional model, a legal requirement has been written into the IPDB document that requires it to move towards dissolving the association and becoming fully decentralized.

IPDB Infrastructure

There is still a lot of work to be done on IPDB in the coming months:

On the technical side , the IPDB test network will be launched and work will be moving towards the production network. The test network can be reset at any time, so it should not be used for production. It will first be used for internal testing, then open to invited users, and finally publicly released. After that, the production network will be launched.

On the governance side , a working group will be established this summer to manage the gatekeeper. BlueYard Capital will discuss and decide on the process and procedures for selecting a new gatekeeper (and removing the old one), selecting board members, and handling requests for information or takeover requests from the government.