Blockchain Industry and Innovation Labs Co., Ltd. (BiiLabs) is a tech startup headquartered in Taiwan. Launched in 2017, the company builds network infrastructures that use blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT). DLT synchronizes data across geographically disbursed data repositories.
One project BiiLabs is working on is with the Taipei city government, where BiiLabs’ DLT technology is supporting the Taipei City Digital Citizen Cards project. The technology ensures that citizens have verifiable decentralized identifiers (DIDs) with public and private keys to protect against identity theft.
BiiLabs looked to accelerate the adoption of blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) as a tool to reduce the cost of identity authentication and data security. The business sought a cloud platform on which it could develop its proprietary Alfred application programming interface (API) service. Lman Chu, CEO and cofounder of BiiLabs, says, “The Alfred API provides one of the best solutions for PoE [proof-of-existence] via DLT, and can send transactions from Internet of Things [IoT] devices to trusted networks.”
BiiLabs wanted to work with a cloud service provider that could help minimize its cost base and chose to develop the Alfred API on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Says Chu, “We chose the AWS Cloud to eliminate the need for centralized control and avoid the expenses that it would impose. Because transactions are signed using an asset owner’s public/private key pair, the data in a ledger cannot be altered retroactively once recorded. The distributed ledgers record transactions between two parties efficiently, verifiably, and permanently.”
The Alfred API runs on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, while Elastic Load Balancing distributes the incoming Alfred API data traffic across the instances. A hardware-accelerating caching proxy service enables fast transactions for lookup and batched data manipulation. The business uses Amazon API Gateway to control access and service operations. AWS Lambda is used for API forwarding and logging management tasks, and AWS Identity and Access Management (AWS IAM) controls identity analysis. Adds Chu, “We use AWS CloudHSM, which allows companies to generate and use their own encryption keys, to help customers secure communications across the network.”
BiiLabs has developed a DLT accelerator that caches API requests on Amazon EC2 instances, enabling the Alfred API to serve thousands of requests at once, thereby saving time. Chu says, “We chose AWS because of the stability of its services such as Amazon EC2. Being experienced in IoT, we also valued AWS’s IoT offerings. For example, we can use Amazon FreeRTOS to program microcontrollers that we will leverage intensively to offer a broader range of BaaS solutions to our customers.”
BiiLabs also chose AWS because of AWS Marketplace, an online store that AWS customers use to buy software and services. The sales channel makes it easier for AWS sellers to offer software solutions that run on the AWS Cloud. Chu says, “We can leverage the sales automation in AWS Marketplace to drive deployments without incurring the costs of an expanding sales team, reducing our sales overheads by 50 percent. Furthermore, because AWS Marketplace is global, we effectively have a presence in all potential markets.”
BiiLabs offers a free edition of the Alfred API in AWS Marketplace called Alfred Series: IOTA Accelerator. The Alfred Series: IOTA Accelerator comes as an Amazon EC2 image with a built-in Tangle-Accelerator service, and uses Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to launch Tangle-Accelerator instances. Tangle-Accelerator is an open source project that is used as a caching proxy service for rapid blockchain transactions, especially for lookup and batched data manipulation. The full edition of the Alfred API consists of more features, such as PoE and decentralized identifier (DID) with fees based on usage.
The Alfred API is supporting TransIOT, a company based in Taipei, which specializes in smart-cloud platforms. TransIOT has developed a solution for automotive manufacturers to work with usage-based insurance (UBI) companies. The pay-as-you-drive insurance model uses telematics, where a device is fitted to a vehicle to collect data on how, where, and when a person drives. This data is then used as a baseline for calculating an insurance premium. According to Allied Market Research, the UBI market is expected to be worth $123 billion by 2022.
Using AWS, BiiLab’s Alfred API encrypts the data that TransIOT telematics devices collect from vehicles and stores it using the DLT. Keanu Lin, CEO of TransIOT, says, “UBI is a huge market for TransIOT and by using BiiLabs’ Alfred API, we can easily keep the records of driving behavior. We like the stability and performance of the Alfred API, which means we can focus on our own product development.”
BiiLabs expects the use cases for the Alfred API to grow exponentially with the rise of IoT, when companies will need to protect data for billions of connected devices. It’s believed that BaaS will play a key role in driving the development of artificial intelligence–based applications. Chu explains, “To support artificial intelligence, there will need to be greater data liquidity, which refers to data in its most liquid format requiring no further transformation or distribution.” Chu continues, “Our BaaS technology on the AWS Cloud enables the required level of data liquidity. It also protects the privacy of citizens’ digital footprints and will allow people to sell their digital assets to companies without giving up their privacy.”
To learn more, visit https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace