PCHAIN (PCH) ICO Analysis: A Multi-Chain Protocol For the Ethereum Virtual Machine
Executive Summary
Project Description
The single-chain system provided by Bitcoin and Ethereum gave the world a good foundation for the consensus, synchronization, and security of blockchain data. By facilitating smart contracts, Ethereum, in particular, paved the way for the development of new types of applications. Despite all these, however, it is well-known that the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains have some inadequacies — insufficient support for large-scale transactions, smart contract data compatibility issues, and the absence of a common and effective Oracle method, to mention a few.
To solve these problems, PCHAIN plans to provide a multi-chain system that supports the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine); at the moment, most of the smart contracts in the world are built on the EVM. The PCHAIN protocol will reportedly be faster and more scalable than any other blockchain, and users on EVM will be able to migrate existing DApps and build new ones on the protocol. There are some multi-chain platforms in existence that improve throughput by facilitating parallel transaction processing, but most of them don’t support EVM.
PCHAIN’s system will supposedly improve support for DApps by providing a new structure; the structure will have a main chain and various subchains. When a DApp — or say, a new smart contract — is created, a corresponding sidechain will reportedly be created. According to the project, smart contracts built on PCHAIN will be upgradeable. PCHAIN will also reportedly support cross-chain calls. A toolkit will be provided to kickstart the smart contract on PCHAIN using a non-native token on the other chains. The toolkit is said to support BCH and ERC20 tokens.
Using the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus and by introducing sharding mechanisms at multiple levels, PCHAIN hopes to improve operation efficiency, storage, and expansion of support chains. Reports also claim that the protocol will provide a new Oracle mechanism that is based on the knowledge graph — this is supposed to make it easier to encapsulate smart contracts — along with a W3C-compliant smart data that is expected to address non-intelligence in smart contracts.
According to the project, PCHAIN will come with lots of features applicable to smart contracts, including distributed artificial intelligence, digital asset transaction, and/or a notary system.
Existing Product
Different people have different understanding on prototype/MVP so we don’t claim we have one by now. Precisely speaking, we have implemented some key modules and are in phase one of internal integration. The test environment is built with initial test cases developed. We are adopting an iteration dev module, that means we can release a runnable “prototype” at any time in April. — Dr. Feng Jeff Cao
The PCHAIN team claims to have completed the integration of 3 basic features:
- A new incentive mechanism with native PCH token.
- A dynamic validator.
- Validator rewarding with PCH.
“The MVP test run is stable to achieve consensus, and we will integrate our new highly-efficient consensus algorithm in the next round.”
Roadmap
Dewdrop Stage — T + 7 months
- Complete the development of PCHAIN core system with supports account system and deployment of smart contract,
- Publish technical white paper.
- Test net of main chain online.
River Stage — T + 12 months
- Publish the product on the major network.
- Complete document of external API and wiki.
Sea Stage — T + 15 months
- Expand the capabilities of knowledge graph and Smart Data Blockchain.
- Support external development interfaces.
Ocean Stage — T + 18 months
- Introduce several blockchain application projects to form Knowledge Graph Blockchain Alliance.
Hard Cap and Valuation
There will be a total of 2.1 billion PCH tokens and the project aims to raise 50,000 ETH for 35% of the token total; 15% is to be sold during presale and 20% during the crowdsale proper. The 65% remaining will reportedly be distributed thus: 25% will go to the core team and early contributors, another 25% will be used for community construction, and the final 15% will be used for PoS mining.
Price Per Token
Price per token is yet to be announced, but according to reports, PCH price will be pegged to ETH and not USD.
Important Dates
The project has not yet announced a date for their ICO. At the moment, however, interested participants can submit a private sale enquiry. Just follow the steps below:
- Register on pchain.org and provide your registered email address.
- Submit your real name for verification (this is optional but it will help speed up your email processing).
- Minimum Contribution of 300 ETH, and a maximum of 4,000 ETH.
- Explain how you can contribute to the overall growth of PCHAIN.
Marketing Power
As of the time this post was published, PCHAIN had over 5,800 members on Telegram, over 1,000 followers on Twitter, 87 followers on Medium, 20 followers on Instagram, and 17 followers on GitHub.
Well-Known Team Members
Dr. Feng (Jeff) Cao
- “The Godfather of Chinese Blockchain”
- He invented the first international blockchain patent.
- He executed China’s first ever financial blockchain transaction.
Team Members’ Areas of Expertise
Business experts
Dr. Feng (Jeff) Cao, Vision & Science
- Co-Founder of ChinaLedger, China’s leading open-source blockchain for the financial sector.
- Chief Scientist of Blockchain Application Committee in China Federation of Logistic and Purchasing (The 1st Gov Association in Industry).
- Manager and Senior Research Staff Member at IBM for 9 years (he won IBM’s Global Technical Achievement Awards 3 times).
Target market experts
PCHAIN’s target market is mostly technical, as a result, some experience in software engineering is required.
Marketing experts
No team members with marketing expertise.
Legal experts
No team member with legal expertise.
Software engineering experts
Dr. Feng (Jeff) Cao, Vision & Science
- Manager and Senior Research Staff Member at IBM for 9 years.
Steven Lv, Architecture
- Master of Computer Science of Tsinghua University.
- Senior Software Engineer at SAP Shanghai for 4 years.
Zhanfeng Ma, Blockchain Storage and Optimization
- Senior Software Engineer at SAP Labs China for over 4 years.
- Software Engineer at Sybase (acquired by SAP), a firm that focuses on developing and expanding innovative database technology, for 7 years.
Kevin Zheng, In-memory Data Management
- Full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
- Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Queensland in 2012.
Zhihong Chong, Knowledge Graph
- Associate Professor at the College of Computer Science and Engineering at Southeast University.
- Theoretical and applied research development of blockchain, big data, knowledge graph and deep learning.
Zhenjie Zhang, Query Speedup and Indexing
- Ph.D. in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore.
- Senior Research Scientist at the University of Illinois Advanced Digital Science Center.
Blockchain development experts
Dr. Feng (Jeff) Cao, Vision & Science
- Co-Founder of ChinaLedger, China’s leading open-source blockchain for the financial sector.
- Chief Scientist of Blockchain Application Committee in China Federation of Logistic and Purchasing (the 1st Gov Association in Industry).
Token sale structure
No team member with prior ICO launch experience.
Token economics
No team member with token economics expertise.
Conclusion
Strengths
- A multi-chain system with the ability to support EVM.
- They offer a potential solution to scalability and interoperability — key problems on the blockchain.
- A strong team, led by the renowned Dr. Cao Feng.
- Several partnerships (ChinaLedger, CFLP (government mandated agency), North America Blockchain Association etc.).
Potential risks for investors
- No legal experts, no marketing experts and no named advisors.
Disclaimers:
- Nothing written in this article is a legal or an investment advice.
- Information is provided on a best-effort basis and is subject to change without prior notice. Be sure to verify everything you read with a project team.
The analysis was produced by Research Center team members: Robin Davids, Mark Jedd, Eugene Tartakovsky.
We are constantly working on improving our work, so we welcome all constructive feedback. Let us know what you think.
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Good review.
a very complete information, quite good, has served me. thanks for sharing.
Could be an interesting one. It does remind me a lot of Cardano though, also having their own version of PoS, trying to solve both interoperability and scalability and also using compatibility with the EVM.
Am I wrong?