CapLinked, an enterprise software company specializing in secure information sharing, has announced TransitNet. The latter is an open and unified blockchain framework for protecting digital assets and permanently recording data access during enterprise transactions.
In this context, the average enterprise shares information with hundreds of external organizations each year as it executes its business operations. This often involves the transfer of sensitive, proprietary or confidential information to outside parties.
But the centralized nature of enterprise transactions is inefficient and potentially risky – which creates challenges for companies wishing to track, protect and secure digital assets ‘in motion’. Blockchain technology offers an alternative to the current centralized databases for recording digital asset transfer and access by third parties. Unlike centralized databases, with a blockchain solution there is a permanent, immutable, trust-free and perpetually accessible record. This provides risk mitigation. Possessing a detailed and indisputable record of past activity increases confidence for all participants.
“Enterprise transactions are full of friction and risk. While Ripple and other decentralized technologies are addressing payments, the transfer of funds is only a small part of a B2B transaction,” said CapLinked CEO Eric M. Jackson. “Companies have to exchange information before, during, and after a transaction, raising many challenges around the security, control, and tracking of digital assets. That’s why we’re building TransitNet, a decentralized protocol to protect digital assets and permanently record data access.”
Transitnet and its API
The TransitNet protocol will be accessible via an API. Its purpose is to apply protections and activity tracking for business deal information exchange. Financing, licensing, M&A, asset sales, business development, orders, well as related issues of compliance, regulatory review, and audit mean enterprises constantly must share information with third parties. Transaction tracking on an immutable ledger can make business operations both more transparent and reliable, for all participants..
TransitNet will tackle integral enterprise transaction needs via an open, global distributed ledger. TransitNet’s decentralized application (dApp / API) will allow users to apply protections and track digital assets when they’ transfer to third parties. This will include encryption, watermarking and setting access parameters for digital assets ‘on the move’. It will enable movement tracking.
The intended effect is that there will be the immutable decentralized ledger which provides undeniable proof of access — a resource should subsequent disputes arise. In that context TransitNet could become ‘an indispensable component for the execution of transactional interactions’.
CapLinked
CapLinked was founded in 2010 by Eric M. Jackson (who was PayPal’s first head of US marketing) and Christopher Grey (a former private equity and investment banking executive). Investors include Founders Fund, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, 500 Startups, and Indicator Ventures.
TransitNet leverages CapLinked’s existing experience in providing software solutions for enterprise transactions. Clients use the company’s software-as-a-service platform to protect, track and recall access to millions of files sent to outside parties during business deals and other projects. Clients include Ernst & Young, DaVita Healthcare Partners, Roche, Hess, FTI Consulting, and Brookline Bank.
Arons Lee, Chief Technology Officer at CapLinked, said: “Blockchain, in its peer-to-peer, distributed nature, will offer a distinct set of benefits to the most urgent needs for secure enterprise file sharing. Blockchain’s permanence and immutability means that there is very little risk that a malicious act or business failure will result in loss of data or manipulation. A distributed ledger brings process integrity to an ecosystem of stakeholders and prospective users who will be able to trust the technological backbone that is far more secure that any current cloud-based applications in existence.”
What does this mean
This TransitNet announcement follows behind CapLinked’s partnership with decentralized cloud storage provider Storj Labs. The latter hosts confidential business documents and transactions, thereby providing clients a decentralized peer-to-peer network to store files.
With TransitNet, the vision is to build a blockchain-based decentralized protocol which facilitates secure and immutable enterprise transactions based on blockchain technology. The objective is to improve information exchange and enable dependable business process automation.
Does this make sense? Yes. That said, the issue is: will early use enterprises pay sufficient to carry TransitNet through the ramp up phase? To ET this is the big question. The formal business logic is there but the appeal seems vague, even insubstantial – unless your enterprise has a specific problem. Early believers may sign up. But sustained adoption may require evidence of a commercial disaster prevented to generate sufficient depth of interest for survival.
