The Fabric Token Ecosystem Transforming Ideas Into DApps
The Fabric Token (FT) ecosystem aims to empower individuals and businesses with easy access to blockchain technology and smart contracts by providing a bundle of user-friendly software. The products within the FT ecosystem will focus primarily on helping people of any background to create and deploy their decentralized application (DApp), without the specialized computer programming knowledge that they would usually need.
As we show in the White Paper, blockchain technology and smart contracts can have a drastic impact on industries as varied as finance, food delivery and government. To this end and to solve the problems listed below, we present the Fabric Token ecosystem.
Problems
Accessibility & Financial Inefficiency in Blockchain Adoption & Smart Contracts Blockchain technology and smart contracts are still mostly misunderstood and difficult to adopt. Blockchain technology is still widely regarded as experimental by individuals and businesses alike, and many consider it synonymous with Bitcoin or Ethereum – just two of its most popular applications. Furthermore, even those who decide to get involved with building blockchain-based applications (DApps) are faced with a lack of user-friendly software and tutorials in a niche where significant technological expertise is a must.
As we show in the White Paper, blockchain technology and smart contracts can have a drastic impact on industries as varied as finance, food delivery and government. To this end and to solve the problems listed below, we present the Fabric Token ecosystem.
Problems
Accessibility & Financial Inefficiency in Blockchain Adoption & Smart Contracts Blockchain technology and smart contracts are still mostly misunderstood and difficult to adopt. Blockchain technology is still widely regarded as experimental by individuals and businesses alike, and many consider it synonymous with Bitcoin or Ethereum – just two of its most popular applications. Furthermore, even those who decide to get involved with building blockchain-based applications (DApps) are faced with a lack of user-friendly software and tutorials in a niche where significant technological expertise is a must.
This forces businesses to seek the help of highly-paid specialists, which could prove unaffordable for startups and unprofitable for enterprises. As a result, the benefits of using DApps cannot justify the financial strain on the project, which hinders innovation in multiple industries. Given that the competence required to transform application logic into smart contracts can often surpass current levels of qualification, expert intermediaries usually end up being a necessity, which erases one of the key benefits of using smart contracts in the first place.
The Technical & Financial Challenges of Developing Smart Contracts Developing smart contracts, even with Solidity, presents an array of challenges, both financial and technical. On the technical side, due to the fact that smart contracts aim to replace legal contracts with self-enactable computer code, they are difficult to comprehend for the lay person. With developers comprising only around 0.003% of the global population and since most of them still regard blockchain technology as experimental, there are only a handful of people who can develop, test, and deploy blockchain-based applications properly.
Additionally, even IT specialists can overlook bugs in their code and, in the case of smart contracts, this has already led to hundreds of millions USD worth of losses in cryptocurrencies. This problem arises both from the fact that the Solidity programming language is still in its early stages and from the fact that, in order to write secure smart contracts, programmers need to be fully aware of the way blockchain technology works under the hood as well as what the common smart contract security considerations are.
Since smart contracts are immutable, the margin for error is practically non-existent. Simple mistakes in a deployed smart contract are likely to be exploited by malicious users who do not lack incentives considering the ever-increasing monetary value of cryptocurrencies.
The Current Challenges of Intra & Inter-Organizational Business Processes. Business process management, in its current state, has several flaws unnecessarily complicating the workflow. The first and foremost problem is trust. When it comes to inter-organizational business processes, trust is deficient. Each organization keeps details only about the part of the process that concerns them, making it very difficult to track where a given problem comes from or verify that other parties comply to the process specification that they have agreed upon. To solve this, businesses rely on intermediaries, who ensure trust and monitor the workflow execution. This, however, not only increases process times, but also costs. To further complicate things, the standard way of business process management at the moment – enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems – can be very rigid and expensive to adjust to the ever-changing requirements of businesses. These are just a few examples of the way in which intra- and especially inter-organizational business processes are modeled, maintained and executed. They show that it needs significant revisions in order to be faster, more cost-effective, and, most importantly, trustworthy.
Solution
Fabric Token
The payment utility within the FT ecosystem. One of the fundamental parts of the FT ecosystem will be the Fabric Token itself. It will be used as a utility to pay for products and services within the platform. For example, if someone wants to generate token and fundraiser smart contracts for their project, they will have to, in the end, pay a small fee in Fabric Tokens in order to get access to their code. Additionally, the Fabric Token is going to be used as a digital asset which will be exchanged between third-party developers and users on the Fabric Store. The main idea behind Fabric Token is that, unlike the more popular cryptocurrencies, its value will depend solely on the FT ecosystem’s performance and growth, rather than on other external factors.
Fabric Store
A decentralized marketplace for smart contract components. The Fabric Store will allow third-party developers to earn tokens and build their reputation by complementing TokenGen and DApp Workbench with their custom-built software components. Strictly digital in nature, it will provide a lucrative opportunity for talented programmers, while helping the FT ecosystem expand and provide even more possibilities for businesses and individuals. The marketplace will embrace the decentralized and immutable nature of the blockchain by storing its data on it, guaranteeing fair product reviews that cannot be tampered with, and protecting sellers from chargeback fraud, a common issue in traditional online stores.
TokenGen
A simple web application for smart contract generation. TokenGen will allow users to generate smart contracts for their token and fundraiser by going through a simple step-by-step process – selecting token and fundraiser functionality, filling out details such as token name and symbol, paying in FT, before finally getting the fully tested and secure smart contract code as specified by the user. The smart contracts generated by TokenGen will be fully editable in case users need to add custom functionality. TokenGen also provides in-depth documentation on all smart contract templates, including a guide that comes with the code, making it easy, if needed, to edit something at a later point.
TokenGen
A simple web application for smart contract generation. TokenGen will allow users to generate smart contracts for their token and fundraiser by going through a simple step-by-step process – selecting token and fundraiser functionality, filling out details such as token name and symbol, paying in FT, before finally getting the fully tested and secure smart contract code as specified by the user. The smart contracts generated by TokenGen will be fully editable in case users need to add custom functionality. TokenGen also provides in-depth documentation on all smart contract templates, including a guide that comes with the code, making it easy, if needed, to edit something at a later point.
DApp Workbench
The business application platform for incorporating smart contracts and blockchain into BPM. DApp Workbench will help organizations develop smart contracts through business process modeling. The application features a drag-and-drop interface, which will make use of the BPMN 2.0 standard, enabling the import and reuse of diagrams created using other BPMN-compatible tools. A subset of the BPMN specification and pre-defined smart contract components will allow the creation of fully automated workflows for various blockchain technologies, including, but not limited to, Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. DApp Workbench will enable all the steps of development of automated business processes starting from design, compilation and testing through deployment, monitoring and decommission of workflows on the blockchain.
The business application platform for incorporating smart contracts and blockchain into BPM. DApp Workbench will help organizations develop smart contracts through business process modeling. The application features a drag-and-drop interface, which will make use of the BPMN 2.0 standard, enabling the import and reuse of diagrams created using other BPMN-compatible tools. A subset of the BPMN specification and pre-defined smart contract components will allow the creation of fully automated workflows for various blockchain technologies, including, but not limited to, Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. DApp Workbench will enable all the steps of development of automated business processes starting from design, compilation and testing through deployment, monitoring and decommission of workflows on the blockchain.
The Official Fabric Token (FT) Bounty Program