Truebit Co., the developer of blockchain enhancement technology that enables smart contracts to securely perform complex computations, today announced a new verified computing platform that extends the functions of Web3 enterprise applications beyond traditional blockchains.

Web3 technology, which is also called the decentralized web, enables peer-to-peer transactions to be conducted using blockchain technology without the need for centralized servers. It allows self-executing code called smart contracts to run on blockchain infrastructure.

Web3 leverages consensus, verification and transparency for security, reliability, risk mitigation, portability, interoperability and cost control. International Data Corp. has estimated that 80% of enterprises will participate in ecosystems relying on decentralized Web3 code within the next five years.

Truebit said it’s addressing what it says is 99% of application logic that executes outside the blockchain. For example, a smart contract may kick off a process that executes a financial transaction on a platform outside of the blockchain. That creates an opening for fraudsters to compromise transactions that can’t be verified inside the smart contract.

“The question we’re working on is how do you fundamentally make computing transparent and secure?” said Blane Sims, Truebit’s head of product.

In the case of the financial transaction, Truebit creates a certified transcript of identity validation services from a third party, verifies it with machine learning algorithms that look for suspicious activities, independently certifies that the intended trades are settled accurately, and certifies the accuracy of data reported to investors and regulators.

Embellishing the blockchain

“The blockchain is a very solid foundation for writing a ledger and for creating transparency and security around decentralized transactions, but it doesn’t fill in much of the architectural stack for a typical application,” Sims said. “[Application program interfaces] are not natively Web3 constructs. They’re part of the Web2 mainstream. Making an API call in a transparent way that shows proof of how the call was made, the interactions with the service, and proof of the data the service provided is where Truebit comes in.”

Truebit said its serverless Verify integration framework lets developers read and write code to any API, deploy applications iteratively and quickly, optimize workflow and improve security, data integrity and process transparency. Applications can interact with multiple data sources and verifiably execute complex code.

The product’s architecture provides a fully isolated sandbox for the safe execution of off-ledger tasks with code being immediately across all Truebit Nodes, which automatically verify each task and ensure that the code written is the same as the code executed.

Truebit Tasks read and write data from public and private APIs with verified operations for data transformations or calculations. Tasks are always on, accessible from a standard REST interface and able to support an application’s event-driven architecture. The product supports JavaScript, Rust and C++ and is extensible to any language supported by the WebAssembly portal binary code. Programs can copy data and transfer assets between ledgers with rules and validation specifically to the application’s needs.

The software runs on multiple decentralized nodes that execute the same functional call multiple times to verify that the result is the same. If results differ, “we enter into something called a verification game, which is where we go down to the machine code level in Web Assembly and step through it to pinpoint which of the nodes is not behaving properly,” Sims said. “It may be trying to alter the result of the function or perhaps has simply been misconfigured. In either case, that node’s results are thrown out.”

The product’s architecture provides a fully isolated sandbox for the safe execution of off-ledger tasks with code being immediately across all Truebit Nodes. Tasks can read and write data from public and private APIs with verified operations for data transformations or calculations.

Programs can copy data and transfer assets between ledgers with rules and validation specifically tailored to an application’s needs. Multiple, independent Nodes automatically verify each task and ensure that the code written is the same as the code executed.

“Think of it as a message broker that’s taking the request for a function call to the nodes, gathering results, verifying the results and creating a transcript,” Sims said.

The 20-person company was founded by Jason Teutsch, who designed the original Truebit verification protocol and described it in a 2017 research paper. The project is in beta testing and is expected to go live by the end of the year.

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