ICO's are not the only way to blockchain your business.

While we see many ICO's that are thinly veiled attempts to "tokenize" some non-blockchain related business idea, in the hope that by going the ICO route they will enable the funding of the unfundable, there are other companies quietly working in the background to bridge the gap between the blockchain and existing centralised business models. Going forward it will be these companies that allow already profitable business models to integrate the best of the blockchain into their offering that will out perform those whose only real motivation for including the blockchain is the funding opportunity.

One of those companies is the OPEN platform, a system of technologies designed to facilitate mainstream adoption of blockchains by creating a unique platform that makes it easy for developers to integrate decentralized technologies it existing platforms. The OPEN platform does this through 4 Key Components:

Scaffolds

A Scaffold is a template smart contract that includes application specific information, such as the pricing scheme or number of gems owned in the network. The Scaffold is created by the developer when the developer pays into a Scaffold Creator. The Scaffold becomes active when it is staked with enough OPENTokens. The Scaffold is responsible for creating the OPEN_States for the developers application. As such, the Scaffold needs a specific pricing scheme for the OPEN_State, and it uses this pricing scheme as a way to check if it is being paid enough. The Scaffold is also responsible for transferring the payment given to it for the OPEN_State into the developer’s wallet. A Scaffold requires the developer’s address for transfers, a pricing scheme, and access to a pricing oracle, but can also can hold any number of additional variables and data.

Scaffold Creator

The API that OPEN provides to create Scaffolds for developers through a simple API call. The Scaffold Creator can create Scaffolds with ETH, but for the Scaffolds to become active it is necessary to stake them with OPENTokens. The OPEN API will have a built-in functionality that gives developers the ability to generate new Scaffolds set to the developer’s address as the owner. By utilizing OPENTokens to initialize the Scaffold, the developer can create a unique Scaffold in the blockchain ecosystem.

OPENWallet

The developer’s wallet can be any online wallet that is capable of receiving cryptocurrencies and holding OPENToken. While OPEN allows developers to use any wallet, it is recommended that they use the OPENWallet. It is important to note that OPENWallet’s architecture is however generalizable over any wallet for widespread use. The developer’s wallet is used in three different scenarios. The first is when a developer wishes to create a new Scaffold by paying into the Scaffold Creator. This transaction would include a staked payment in OPENTokens along with some data and would be propagated by the OPEN API to the Scaffold Creator, effectively abstracting away underlying blockchain technology.

OPEN States

Normally, the OPEN API can be implemented on the application controller to check the Scaffold for any new OPEN States, and then propagate those changes. The application database then monitors the blockchain for OPEN States being instantiated from relevant Scaffolds. Upon discovery, the database propagates the state change represented by the OPEN State. The verifier can be one of a multitude of implementations, but it is meant to check that the OPEN_State was indeed created by the Scaffold of the developer and that this OPEN_State is the most recent OPEN_State that has been created. If the OPEN State is verified, then the application controller makes the database change.