THE blockchain world today is thousands of disparate platforms that can’t talk to each other. A little-known Chinese startup hatched one of the most ambitious plans yet to bridge all the divides.

Beijing-based Red Date Technology is at the heart of China’s first State-backed blockchain initiative, envisioned as a one-stop hub for developers to build decentralized applications (dapps) for everything from money transactions to drug-delivery tracing. Think of it as the crypto-world equivalent of a cloud service like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure that hooks up and supports a multitude of software and platforms. Since its April rollout, the Blockchain-based Service Network (or BSN) has attracted more than 6,000 enterprise, government and individual users primarily from China.

Red Date, backed by the country’s top economic planner, is the mastermind of the undertaking. The startup’s goal is to push out BSN globally, allowing anyone to create blockchain-based apps without having to then publish offerings on siloed platforms one by one, chief executive officer He Yifan said.

Connecting fragmented blockchains is key to moving the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin beyond just trades and speculation. Projects like Cosmos and Polkadot are competing to establish industry standards, much like the http protocol for the web. BSN, however, simply aspires to be the glue that joins various networks and protocols.

It’s all about doing it fast and cheap, He said. BSN will support its first batch of six public blockchains including Ethereum, EOS and NEO in August, and it’s looking to integrate more than 100 public chains within a year, He said. By leveraging BSN’s tools and data storage services, developers will be able to slash 90 percent off the cost of creating and running a dapp, he estimates.(SD-Agencies)