Wanchain (WAN) Review – An Interoperable and Private Blockchain Platform

Wanchain is a distributed ledger that provides interconnection and interoperability between different blockchain networks, whether between two mainstream public chains, two private chains or public and private chains. Functioning as a distributed “bank,” it seeks to create a new model where other parties will develop their financial services by building a distributed financial market via Wanchain.

Update: As of August 24, Wanchain’s mainnet is live and it has finalized its token swap.

The Idea Behind Wanchain

A fork of Ethereum, Wanchain’s goal is to establish a distributed “bank” in which different digital currencies and assets can be exchanged by blockchains. In addition, this distributed bank will be a place in which financial products and contracts are based on those same digital currencies and assets. These distributed banks will have similar functions to traditional banks but also have additional ones that are provided under the guarantee of the blockchain infrastructure.

Wanchain’s distinguishing features are its cross-chain abilities, which enable scalability in the blockchain and real-world applications such as: multi-asset investment and financing, decentralized loans, multi-coin payments and settlements, and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges. The end goal is for users to be able to have their own virtual teller window from which they can provide applications for new loans, asset exchanges, credit payment and transaction settlements based on digital assets. It also features Wan Smart Contract, which are similar to those in Ethereum but with privacy protection.

The founder and current CEO of Wanchain, Jack Lu, has almost 20 years of experience as a software engineer in the ecommerce industry, and got into Bitcoin in 2012. He started coding on Ethereum in the early days of the project, investing all of his bitcoins in the Ethereum ICO while at the same time starting Factom. Luckily, both Ethereum and Factom have been extremely successful.

Li Ni, the Vice President, also has 15 years of experience in IT as well as international experience in marketing. Previously, he worked as a director and principal in a business team for ZTE Telecommunication, Delta Electronics and SuperMap Software. He has been an IT consultant for the Ministry of Agriculture in China and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

The Vice President of Global Communications, Oliver Birch, has previously worked for various startups in the blockchain space as well as managing clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies. He has a bachelor’s in philosophy, politics and economics from Lancaster University.

The company is headquartered in Singapore but also has a presence in Austin, Texas.

The Wanchain Partnerships

Wanchain is part of the Blockchain Interoperability Alliance along with ICON and Aion. The group promotes interoperability between the separate blockchain networks, as interconnectivity between them has presented a challenge in the market.

Wanchain recently announced a new partnership with KronosToken, a financial platform that enables the average investor to access elite trading strategies from fund managers around the world.

In May, the company announced a partnership with Pundi X, a blockchain company based in Jakarta that has developed a device that enables customers and businesses to use cryptocurrency for their transactions.

In July, Wanchain officially announced a partnership with Fysical, a decentralized location data market protocol. The two share similar goals and will work together to build an ecosystem that is more just and equitable for stakeholders.

More recently, it joined the Token Alliance, a group representing more than 250 global blockchain and token experts that meet with the goal of helping to influence growth of the token marketplace.

The Wanchain Architecture

Wanchain’s blockchain can run any traditional smart contract utilizing existing tool chains. Its secure multi-party computation combined with threshold key sharing allows any distributed app to access any digital asset from Wanchain’s blockchain.

Its architecture includes five separate components:

Distributed Ledger and Smart Contract Virtual Machine

As an Ethereum-based ledger, it can run applications with account models and smart contracts similar to Ethereum. In addition, it offers cross-chain transactions and smart contract token privacy protection.

Native Coin

The native coin of Wanchain is Wancoin. It is used to operate cross and intra-chain transactions as well as security deposits for cross-chain verification nodes. The company just completed its token swap, exchanging its ERC-20 tokens for Wancoin at a 1:1 ratio.

Consensus Mechanism

Transactions on Wancain achieve consensus and incentives with a Proof of Stake (POS) consensus mechanism. The idea is that other blockchains developed on Wanchain have similar blockchains to Wanchain in order to facilitate cross-chain mechanism and seamless integration with one another.

Intra-Chain Transactions

These transactions are similar to those in Ethereum but with an added privacy protection mechanism implemented through a ring signature scheme. Ring signatures are based on elliptic curve cryptography, a one-time account generation mechanism and other cutting-edge cryptographic technologies. They provide complete anonymity to the signer of a transactions while at the same time the ability to verify that specific sender’s signature. The one-time address (OTA) provides anonymity for the receiver of the transactions if he or she desires.

Cross-Chain Integration

All blockchains and assets integrating with Wanchain must be registered on Wanchain in order to verify they can be uniquely identified. Minimal integration costs are accrued due to multi-party computing and threshold secret-sharing joint anchoring scheme.

Wancoin

With the launch of its mainnet, Wanchain has finalized its token swap, replacing its earlier ERC-20 tokens with Wancoin, the native token of the platform. The original tokens were traded at a ratio of 1:1 for Wancoins. Wancoin is used for both cross and intra-chain transactions as well as security deposits for cross-chain verification nodes.

Wanchain Token Price History

WAN raised $36 million in their ICO that took place in October 2017.

After the token was sold for an initial price of $0.34, it reached a peak of $9.82 in May of this year, coinciding with its listing on Huobi. It has been on a downward trend since.

How to Purchase WAN

The main way to purchase WAN is through Binance, which currently has one of the largest volumes of WAN traded over $1 million, allowing you to exchange WAN with BTC, ETH and BNB.

WAN is also available on the following exchanges:

• Huobi (Trade WAN with BTC on Huobi)
• Huobi (Trade WAN with ETH on Huobi)
• Kucoin (Trade WAN with BTC on Kucoin)
• DragonEX (Trade WAN with ETH on DragonEX)
• Bitbnx (Trade WAN with INR on Bitbns)

How to Store WAN

WAN can be stored in the Wan Wallet which is available in Windows, iOS and Linux versions from the Wanchain website.

For maximum security, however, you should store your WAN on hardware wallets such as Ledger Nano S and Trezor. Wanchain recently announced that Ledger Nano S supports Wancoin.

Roadmap and Future Updates

Wanchain’s roadmap is extensive and available on their website. The company was founded in 2016 and published their first white paper and held an ICO the following year. Wanchain 1.0 went live at the beginning of 2018, featuring privacy protection, the Wancoin, Wan Wallet and Blockchain Explorer.

It has reached its goal of launching its mainnet and integration with Ethereum and a multi-coin wallet and plans on launching Wanchain 4.0, which integrates with private chains and a multi-coin wallet in 2019.