HYDRO: The Public Ledger for Financial Services

The position of cryptocurrency in today’s world is growing rapidly; the combined market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has increased more than threefold since early 2016, reaching almost $150 billion in August 2017.
Since bitcoin was introduced in 2009 and had been rapidly developing for these several years, people found that bitcoin has more potential than just being a kind of electronic currency.

More importantly, blockchain, the underlying technology of bitcoin, has the unlimited capacity even more valuable than bitcoin itself that can be applied in the development of different kinds of applications, which have the same characteristic, which is decentralization. In line with this, I present to you Hydrogen (Hydro), a project that centers on providing public authentication on the Blockchain network.

Hydrogen is a project that enables new and existing private systems to seamlessly integrate and leverage the immutable & transparent dynamics of a public blockchain to enhance application and document security, identity management, transactions, and artificial intelligence.

Hydrogen is providing a technology which is intended to provide additional security for sensitive financial data that is increasingly at risk from hacking and breaches. This proposed technology is referred to as “Raindrop” - a transaction performed through a smart contract that validates private system access publicly, and can complement existing private authentication methods.

Hydrogen platform is built on the ethereum blockchain and as such, as an enabling smart contract. Smart contracts are self-executing blocks of code that multiple parties can interact with, cutting out the need for trusted middlemen. Code in a smart contract can be seen as similar to the legal clauses in a traditional paper contract, but can also achieve much more expansive functionality. The smart contract is a vital tool for building on the Ethereum infrastructure and in the same vein, the core functionality of the Hydro blockchain layer is achieved via custom contracts.

THE HYDROGEN RAINDROPS

Rain contains packets of condensed water ranging from 0.0001 to 0.005 centimeters in diameter. In a typical rainstorm, there are billions of these packets, each of random size, velocity, and shape. Because of that, one cannot reliably predict the exact nature of rain. Similarly, every Hydro authentication transaction is unique and virtually impossible to have occurred by chance, thus the concept; “Raindrops”.

Public blockchain-based operations can occur before, during, or after private operations. The interplay between private and public elements can serve to validate, stamp, record, or enhance processes within an ecosystem. The ethos of this model is making processes more robust by tapping into the benefits of blockchain technology specifically where it can produce the most positive impact. While this hybrid framework may not be applicable to all platforms, Hydro focuses on providing value for the cases in which it is.

Built on top of this Hydro public ledger is a blockchain-based authentication service, called “Raindrop” which offers a distinct, immutable, globally viewable layer of security that verifies an access request is coming from an authorized source.

Private authentication protocols such as OAuth 2.0 offer varying levels of robustness and usefulness for the spectrum of use cases that exist. In line with this, there is little need to compete with or attempt to replace these protocols. Thus, Hydro offers a way to enhance these existing protocols by incorporating blockchain mechanics as a component of an authentication procedure which can add a useful layer of security to help thwart system breaches and data compromises.

Financial services platforms commonly utilize micro-deposit verification to validate client accounts. The concept is simple: the platform makes small deposits of random amounts into a user's claimed bank accounts. In order to prove the user indeed owns said account, he or she must relay the deposit amounts back to the platform, which are then validated, the only way the user can know the valid amounts (besides guessing) is by accessing the bank accounts in question.

Raindrop-based verification with Hydro is analogous. Rather than sending the user an amount and having it relayed back, a transaction is defined and the user must execute it from a known wallet. The only way the user can conduct a valid transaction is by accessing the wallet in question. By using Raindrops, both the system and the accessor can monitor authorization attempts on an immutable public ledger. This blockchain-based transaction is decoupled from the basic system operations, occurs on a distributed network, and depends upon the ownership of private keys. Therefore, it serves as a useful validation vector.

Basically, there are 4 entities involved in the Hydro authentication process:

1. Accessor - The party attempting to access a system. In the case of Hydrogen, the accessor is a financial institution or app utilizing the Hydrogen APIs for its core digital infrastructure.
2. System - The system or gateway that is being accessed by the Accessor. For Hydrogen, the system is the Hydrogen API itself.
3. Hydro - The module that is utilized by the System to communicate and interface with the blockchain.
4. Blockchain - The distributed public ledger that processes HYDRO transactions and contains the Hydro smart contracts, through which information may be pushed, pulled, or otherwise operated upon.
   Similarly, each Raindrop, in its entirety, is a set of five transactional parameters:
5. Sender - The address that must initiate the transaction.
6. Receiver - The transaction's destination. This corresponds to calling a method in a Hydro smart contract.
7. ID - An identifier that is associated with the System.
8. Quantity - A precise number of HYDRO to send.
9. Challenge - A randomly generated alphanumeric string.

In conclusion, it is believed that the framework being set forth by Hydrogen project can be the standard security infrastructure for a new model of hybrid private-public systems, which will benefit all stakeholders in the financial services industry and beyond.

For a more detailed knowledge about what HYDROGEN project is trying to achieve, visit and follow the links below:

• Website
• Raindrop Whitepaper
• Medium
• Twitter
• Reddit
• Telegram
• Discord
• YouTube
• BitcoinTalk

HYDRO is currently trading on the below exchanges:

• Mercatox
• ForkDelta
• Joyso
• CoinEx