Chinese financial technology firm Ant Financial announced Friday that its OpenChain distributed ledger blockchain platform is now open to small business developers to help with the creation of distributed apps.

Ant Financial, formerly known as Alipay, is the financial technology arm of Chinese multinational e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and is estimated to be the highest-valued fintech company in the world. The company has explored payment and logistics solutions using blockchain technology including cross-border payments.

The Ant Financial Blockchain boasts the largest productivity blockchain in China and the platform processes and supports over one billion user accounts and one billion transactions per day.

The OpenChain platform began as a proprietary solution developed and launched internally to Ant Financial and now is generally available.

“Applications of blockchain technology have ballooned over the past few years,” said Jin Ge, general manager of blockchain platforms at Ant Financial. “Through the launch of the OpenChain platform, we aim to help one million small and micro enterprises and developers innovate and explore more use cases in the next three years.”

OpenChain contains dozens of easy-to-use modules designed to allow networking multiple parties for collaborative solutions and use cases such as supply chain finance, product provenance, digital invoices and charitable donations.

Blockchain technology uses distributed cryptographic ledgers to store transaction data in a way that’s highly tamper-resistant and allows every node in the network to view the state of the network at any time. That means blockchain technology can be used to allow multiple parties to trust the ledger without the need for a central authority, thus allowing for individual authentication of data.

Ant Financials’ OpenChain also uses trusted computing capabilities to enhance data security and privacy for apps running on its platform.

Apps developed for OpenChain use the blockchain and programmable smart contracts to store data and distribute computation. Decentralized apps, or Dapps, do not require centralized servers and run distributed across the entire blockchain network. As a result, every participant in the network facilitates the execution and security of the app; every participant also has access to the same data and can open or restrict visibility into the details while also being certain that the data is secure.

Using a modular design, OpenChain also allows developers to quickly create an app from off-the-shelf components. This means a basic app can be developed and launched in a short time with the opportunity to upgrade later as the business grows.

“The platform offers efficient blockchain development services, facilitates cost-effective smart contracts, and lowers the entry barrier for developers,” said Wu Xiao, founder and chief executive of WhiteMatrix, a provider of individual developer services and enterprise blockchain app development. “Not only are OpenChain’s transaction speeds several times faster than public blockchain platforms like Ethereum, but the cost per transaction is only one-tenth of others.”

The platform will cost $14 per month for small business and developer partners signing onto the service.

Photo: Pixabay