nChain Releases Nakasendo™ Software Development Kit

nChain, the global leader in research and development of blockchain technologies, is pleased announce that it has completed version 1.0 of its new Nakasendo™ software development kit (SDK).  The SDK is being made available now to selected partners in an initial testing pool, and will be made available more publicly at a later time.

The SDK is named after an ancient trail connecting Edo (modern day Tokyo) to Kyoto; in Japanese language, “nakasendo” means “road through the middle mountains” or “central mountain route.”    Through its Nakasendo™ SDK, nChain will provide software libraries that help application developers navigate the complexities of blockchain development, and accelerate their work to make blockchain technologies used by major enterprises across the globe.

Version 1.0 of the SDK focuses on providing a cryptographic library, to allow for a more flexible method of key generation and sharing.  This cryptographic library can be used to improve security for any cryptocurrency exchange, and more broadly for controlling access to any type of digital asset or resource.  It incorporates these two patent-pending assets from nChain’s intellectual property portfolio:

• WO2017145016 (Deterministic Key Generation): “Determining a common secret for the secure exchange of information and hierarchical deterministic cryptographic keys” provides a method whereby two connected nodes, with no trust relationship between them can derive a deterministic hierarchy of each other’s public keys through simply sharing their respective public keys and a message of some format, where the respective private keys can still only be generated by the owner of that private key. Further information on this method can be found on nChain’s website at https://nchain.com/en/blog/nchains-security-inventions/
• WO201714510 (Secure Split Key technique): “Secure Multiparty loss resistant Storage and Transfer of Cryptographic Keys for blockchain based systems in conjunction with a wallet management system” provides a method derived from, but distinct to, “Shamir’s secret sharing scheme” whereby a key can be split into multiple shares and then, in conjunction with the method defined in WO2017145016 above, these parts can be shared using a common encryption key. Further information on this method can be found on nChain’s website at https://nchain.com/en/blog/nchains-security-inventions/

Both of these patent-pending innovations can provide significant security benefits to prevent “Mt. Gox-type” hacks of cryptocurrency wallets.  They can also be used far beyond Bitcoin and blockchain environments – for any situation in which sensitive data, assets, communications or controlled resources need to be secured.  nChain Chief Scientist Dr. Craig Wright is a key inventor for these two assets.

nChain is providing the Nakasendo™ SDK for use under a newly-created “nChain Open Bitcoin Cash License.”  This Open Bitcoin Cash License allows royalty-free usage of copyrights to software in the SDK libraries, and any associated patents that read directly on such software – but only for users to create software or applications that operate on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain.   nChain’s license is modelled after the Microsoft Limited Public License, which provides free right to use certain Microsoft software to create works that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product.  Just like Microsoft’s Limited Public License has a platform limitation for free usage, nChain’s license limits free usage to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain.

nChain Group’s CEO Jimmy Nguyen explains: “We are excited to reach this milestone with the Nakasendo™ SDK, which will help developers navigate the mountains of blockchain work. Although the SDK libraries will be useful for developers on any blockchain or digital platform, we want to use key elements of nChain’s patent portfolio to help benefit the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem.  That is why we are providing the SDK for free usage only for applications and products that operate on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain.  The SDK is one of many tools nChain will use to ignite the BCH blockchain, and help re-invent the business world.”

nChain aims to continue development of its Nakasendo™ library to incorporate further cryptographic techniques and other blockchain optimisations in future releases.