Sikoba — Update #28

Since our last update in April, the Sikoba project had to face several challenges which have impacted on our planned timeline. We were not able to reach minimum targets for either fundraising or project income, so that we now have to operate with a much smaller team. Also, we realised that some rather deep refactoring of the application code and architecture will be necessary before launching our blockchain. That said, we continue to plough ahead.

BekiPay — local currency app

We have completed the development of the BekiPay app, which will allow people and businesses of Luxembourg’s canton of Redange to use e-Bekis instead of paper Bekis. Although BekiPay has not yet been officially launched, the first real e-Beki transactions were already done on 29th July, at the LetzeBurger restaurant in Saeul. This followed a brief training session, where the cashier was shown how to generate a QR code representing a payment request.

The first commercial transaction using BekiPay

another e-Beki transaction, as shown in the app interface

Since then, we have been preparing for production launch. This includes working with the lawyers to finalise Terms & Conditions and making sure BekiPay is fully GDPR compliant, making last adjustments to the app interface as well as testing database replication and switchover to a backup server.

Cooperation with “Proyecto Banco Mujer” in Peru

Since May, we have been in touch with a group of a dozen business women in Peru who are operating a small credit and savings group which they call “Banco Mujer”. Every member of the group puts in an initial stake into a common fund, which is managed by a treasurer. They meet once a month to decide who can borrow from that fund. Loans are typically for 1–3 months. They have now started using the SikobaPay app to register the loans.

This group has so far been operating informally, but they are in the process of creating a legal entity, which will be called Asociacion de Mujeres “Santa Rosa de Lima”. Their goal is to expand their activity, provide advice to other such groups in Lima and also spread the word about SikobaPay.

Sikoba’s Blockchain Architecture

Here is a brief preview of Sikoba’s blockchain architecture. Once this work is completed, it could also be used to decentralise other applications.

Each module runs in its own Docker container and has a specific function:

• The frontdesk acts a filter: transactions or queries that are not correctly formatted or signed are rejected, as are transactions that are already in the mempool.
• The dispatcher receives new transactions from the frontdesk, stores them in the mempool and sends them to Babble. It receives blocks from Babble and prepares final blocks of transactions to be executed by the application. These blocks may be different: pending transactions from the mempool may be added to the final block, while some transactions from Babble may end up as pending if their nonce is too high.
• Babble receives transactions from the dispatcher, communicates with all other Babble nodes in the network and generates blocks which are guaranteed to be the same for all correct nodes.
• The chain_db is a database which includes : (1) a history of all transactions, both pending and processed, (2) the blockchain and (3) some environment data such as a node whitelist.
• The explorer exposes public information about the node and the blockchain via HTML pages.
• The adminbox allows the node owner to perform administrative tasks, such as managing environment variables, managing a whitelist of nodes or restricting access to the frontdesk.
• Finally, the processor and app_db represent the application itself and its database.

Note that there can be different versions of the processor. Once Node operators have agreed on a specific block number for switching to a new version, they will add this information to their node’s configuration and install the new version of the processor. The frontdesk and dispatcher will start routing queries and transactions to the new version at the specified block. The upgrade process will therefore be seamless.

One of our goals is also to support “Ethereum-style” signatures, which will allow users to sign with their existing Ethereum keys. This will then also enable them to sign Sikoba transactions using their hardware wallets. To prepare for that, we have added the verify_ethereum_signature to our ECDSA shard.