Frequently Asked Questions
Most frequent questions and answers
General
What is Catenis ?
Catenis is an easy to use toolset for non-developers and developers alike, it makes building apps enabled with blockchain functionality easily. It runs as a “second layer” web services technology. “Second layer” means the platform sits on top of the base layer blockchain and makes the technology, and the user experience, better and easier to interact with. Catenis enhances many of the underlying services of the bitcoin blockchain while adding enterprise-capable features. Using Catenis makes building apps or integrating with existing apps faster, cheaper and easier
Does Catenis have its own blockchain ?
No, Catenis’ 2nd layer technology was developed to enhance the leading blockchain technology on the planet, bitcoin. It is the most successful and secure blockchain network while still being the only proven global production application period. It is 10 years strong without any security breaches and renowned for its cryptographic strength. The fact that Catenis empowers its users to build on the proven global Bitcoin blockchain makes the technology the superior choice for serious companies, developers and small business alike.
I don't know how to write code can I use Catenis ?
Yes, you need not be a software developer to use Catenis. There are 3 toolsets as part of the Catenis family of products: 1) Catenis Enterprise is the premier web services integration layer targeted specifically for software engineers. 2) Catenis Flow a drag and drop business process assembly pallet based on Node-Red. 3) Catenis Blocks a set of Gutenberg blocks for WordPress allowing easy integration with the blockchain for your online WordPress applications and sites.
How can companies benefit from Catenis?
Just as the Internet transformed the global economy, the decentralized secured peer-to-peer communication and trust afforded by our technology layered on top of the global blockchain opens up a world of benefits for all industries. We believe people want to do business with a greater sense of trust and security. Blockchain of Things customers are using Catenis to transform their organizations and the global economy by leveraging decentralization and more efficient business models.
What is Catenis' rapid adoption technology ?
Blockchain protocol tokens (bitcoin, ethereum, etc.) create a barrier of entry for companies to use the underlying blockchain. Some of the obvious challenges are: 1) Companies need continuously purchase bitcoins and maintain proper balances to use the blockchain. 2) Trusting their employees/developers with private keys has proven to be difficult. 3) Loss of any private key would make an app or system attached to a public address useless. Catenis abstracts out all of the protocol tokens and provides a built-in public/private key management infrastructure eliminating all liabilities, barriers, and risks for companies and individuals. A more extensive writeup on this technology can be seen in a recent blog article.
I heard that bitcoin is slow, how quickly does Catenis deliver secured content ?
Most people when using bitcoin focus on financial transactions and conflate the speed of receiving transactions with the time it takes to log a transaction to a block on the blockchain.
Bitcoin transactions themselves average between 400 and 800ms (less than a second) when sending across wallets. Although Catenis relies on the underlying bitcoin transactions it works on a layer above bitcoin so content can be delivered peer-to-peer at the blink of an eye. Information logging on the blockchain is also in real-time.
What type of data can Catenis transmit or Log ?
Catenis can log or transmit any type or size of content. Since Catenis sees all content as binary (zeros and ones) it is not limited in any way from delivering any type of content: text, songs, zipped packages we got you covered. Want to transmit a large movie or CAD files we can handle that. We do offer the ability to support and recognize different types of content encoding such as UTF8, Base 64, and Hexadecimal. It can even intelligently convert to each encoding type when the content is received.
Is transmitted content encrypted ?
Understanding that the blockchain is transparent and companies need security Catenis enhances the blockchain by adding encryption to all content transmitted or logged. All content in Catenis is encrypted by default using Perfect Forward Secrecy. All encryption keys are dynamically generated and owned by the receiving end. This means that only the receiving app or device can decrypt the content it receives. Only a hash of the encrypted content is stored on the blockchain so there is never any concerns with the blockchain’s public nature.
Does Catenis have a permission layer similar to private blockchain implementations ?
Yes, Catenis not only adds military-grade encryption, it also incorporates a technological advancement in public blockchain permissioning. It incorporates a powerful permission control system on top of the bitcoin blockchain to be able to allow or deny receiving of content or transference of Smart Assets. While devices ultimately are represented by bitcoin public addresses, information transmitted or Smart Assets transferred, across all endpoints are controlled by Catenis’ powerful permission broker.
Is Catenis open source ?
The core of Catenis Enterprise is a closed source product. Licensed like any other software product (ie: Oracle database, Microsoft Office etc.). However, open-source connectivity client libraries are leased in many languages. Additionally, Catenis Flow and Catenis Blocks are open-source and both use the underlying Catenis Enterprise web services integration platform. With support for all development languages it is easier for developers and companies to build applications or integrate existing systems with the global blockchain using Catenis.