The Initiative For CryptoCurrencies & Contracts (IC3) has unveiled a new version of its Teechan off-chain transaction protocol.
First put forward last year, Teechan relies on the utilization of specialized hardware, the Intel SGX, which provides a kind of masking layer for the data it contains. Conceptually, the protocol is similar to the Lightning Network, a proposed transaction layer to bitcoin aimed at creating payment channels – and with them, the potential to enable millions of transactions per second.
It's the promise of huge throughput that has led to projects like Teechan, and the Cornell University-based team behind it is releasing several new changes to the original design, now dubbed "Teechain".
Among those upgrades: the ability to direct payments to parties that aren't directly linked via an existing channel.
Cornell associate professor Emin Gün Sirer explained in an email:
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The group also recently added asset manager Fidelity to its ranks.
Image by Stan Higgins for CoinDesk