Hybrid blockchain technology provider Orbs Ltd. today announced the launch of the company’s production-ready environment for its service: an enterprise-grade blockchain developed using all new open-source code.

“I began my blockchain journey looking for a network that would actually allow real businesses to create solutions on decentralized networks, but the product simply didn’t exist,” said Tal Kol, Orbs co-founder and technical lead.

With Orbs approach to blockchain technology — a system that distributes ledgers that store transaction histories in interlocking cryptographic “chains” in such a way to be highly tamper-resistant — is designed to address what the company says are fundamental issues with performance and interoperability while allowing for highly distributed environments.

“With the launch of Orbs, developers and businesses finally have a system that will enable them to build game changing solutions on the blockchain,” said Kol. “It allows a fundamental shift from building for the sake of the movement alone, to building products that can drive immediate impact.”

The environment includes a full stack of tools for developers and businesses to create their own blockchain solutions and applications. Notable features include a randomized proof-of-stake algorithm that enables high performance alongside large-scale decentralization called Lean Helix Consensus, a smart contract environment that permits coding in Go and Javascript (with more to come) called Polyglot, and full compatibility with the popular public blockchain Ethereum.

For developers, Orbs provides developer tools including a contract software development kit, full documentation, back-end experimentation capability, a testing framework, virtual chain production tools and software kits for Go, Javascript and Python.

A more detailed breakdown of the feature set, including documentation and open-source code available on GitHub, was published alongside the announcement.

“From the day we began, our goal was to create a blockchain that would actually enable real solutions without sacrificing from decentralization,” said Daniel Peled, co-founder and president of Orbs. “The launch is a major step in this process and we look forward to bringing developers and businesses the support and product to maximize the potential of the technology.”

According to ReportLinker, the global blockchain market is expected to grow from $1.2 billion in 2018 to an estimated $23.3 billion in 2023. Large enterprises are expected to hold a significant amount of the market during that period and that’s the segment of the industry Orbs seeks to open up with blockchain tools.

Blockchain technology infrastructure, and its ability to secure historical transactions in a tamper-proof log, has been put to the test for numerous real-world applications, including financial technology such as tracking stocks, bonds or closing payments, “internet of things” applications such as tracking fleets of cars, transport trucks and ships, and food and products in industrial supply chains. Smart contracts executed on distributed blockchains can automate transactions such as the trade of goods and money between parties as well as log the activity in a manner that can be audited for trustworthiness well after the fact.

“This platform is now public and in the hands of the entire community,” Peled said. “It is now possible to begin the process of building a robust yet open ecosystem around our technology.”

The Orbs network, code, technology and blockchain infrastructure are now generally available and all of the code has been released on GitHub.

Image: Orbs