The development team behind ‘privacy platform’ alt coin XCurrency has announced that they will soon release a BlockNet enabled mobile phone app, which will allow users to send instant messages between different block chains.
BlockNet, which recently completed the first ever successful data transfers between block chains, describes itself as an ‘internet of block chains’ that will eventually provide a high degree of interoperability between the different cryptocurrencies which choose to take part. Sending messages between the nodes of different coins is the next step along the path towards developing this interoperability. Eventually, BlockNet developers hope that it will allow the users of any participating coin to take advantage of the features of any other coin, and to initiate transactions which may end up being completed on a completely different block chain – all in a trustless and automated manner which doesn’t require any centralized points of failure.
Creating an interconnected web of block chains which can communicate with each other is expected to increase the number of features each user has access to whilst at the same time extending the useful life of individual chains by reducing block chain ‘bloat’ which is associated with high usage over a long period.
XCurrency itself has a strong focus on messaging, having released an encrypted chat feature in 2014 and with anonymous skype-like call and text functionality on its roadmap for the future. It also provides the XBridge technology which is used by Block Net to allow node from different coins to communicate with each other.