C#-based Blockchain-as-a-Service platform Stratis has announced the production release of its smart contracts in C# and sidechains. Stratis released the alpha version of sidechains in June, and smart contracts in May.
Released alongside these two is the Cirrus sidechain, which will utilize a Proof-of-Authority consensus mechanism. The sidechain requires a “federation” whose members create blocks in which non-members can execute transactions, though the latter will not be able to mine blocks.
To begin with, federation members will comprise of only nodes controlled by Stratis; additional members will be able to join further down the line. The blog post says that the PoA mechanism is a good fit:
A PoA algorithm is ideally suited to a smart contract sidechain. It is a resilient algorithm for blockchains and block creators are kept accountable as they are identifiable. PoA also enables our new sidechain to have a very small and predictable block time, blocks are issued on the network every 16 seconds.
The new sidechain will have its own token called CRS, which will fuel the transactions on the chain. STRAT tokens can be transacted to and from the sidechain, with CRS being pegged to STRAT on a 1:1 ratio.
Stratis has also updated Stratis Core, which comes with the improvement of launching smart contracts from the UI.
Stratis Quietly Fleshing Out Its Platform
Stratis is by no means the most well-known of projects, but the team has been quietly working behind the scenes to develop features. 2018 has seen the accomplishment of several milestones, such as the C# full node, Breeze privacy protocol, an iOS app, and much more.
Indeed, Stratis has done well in meeting the deadlines of a number of their milestones as stipulated by their roadmap. The sidechains production release was a Q4 target, as was the full node production release. Both of these targets have been met.
Cold staking, which allows staking rewards while offline, is another much-anticipated solution that ought to arrive soon. Notably, this feature can exist without necessitating a hard fork. The release of cold staking is contingent on the adoption of the full nodes.
With the production release of smart contracts and sidechains, Stratis has added the icing to a very memorable year for the project.
