Tencent Taps DAML Smart Contract Language for Chinese State Blockchain Network

Tencent’s digital bank WeBank is exploring the integration of the DAML smart contract language for its consortium blockchain FISCO BCOS — the chain that will undergird China’s national Blockchain-Based Service Network (BSN).

On April 16, WeBank announced that integration of the Digital Asset Modeling Language (DAML) — open sourced by its creator, software firm Digital Asset, last year — would help it deliver pioneering blockchain solutions across finance, supply chain and other sectors in China and worldwide.

Developed back in 2016, DAML is an expressive language designed for financial institutions to model and execute agreements using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Digital Asset has ostensibly designed the language for optimal use in private execution environments, rather than open ones.

Implementation at scale

As reported, BCOS is an open-source and coinless blockchain platform built by the Financial Blockchain Shenzhen Consortium (FISCO). FISCO founding members include WeBank, Tencent Cloud, Huawei and Shenzhen Securities Communication and its network now reportedly spans over 10,000 individual developers and more than 500 corporate members worldwide.

The permissioned BCOS platform has been specifically designed to meet the regulatory requirements and service demands of the financial services industry and supports privacy-preserving technologies such as Zero-Knowledge Proofs. 

In 2019, it was selected as the technology infrastructure for China’s BSN, which will serve a range of state-controlled public services nationwide in sectors such as telecoms and energy management. 

The BSN is expected to launch this month, six months after it was first rolled out for testing. The project is a joint initiative from the Chinese state policy think tank, the State In­for­ma­tion Cen­ter, and state-run companies.