Published on Feb 21, 2020
The RChain decentralized applications platform is powered by the Rho Virtual Machine.
Each instance of RhoVM executes an independent set of smart contracts on an independent blockchain and networks only when necessary. This means that RChain is partitioned (sharded) by default, resulting in a network of coordinated and parallel blockchains. This well sought-after "multi-chain" design is built with self-sufficiency in mind, and it represents a victory unique to RChain.
As the platform grows, nodes simply initialize new instances of RhoVM to manage the load. This allows the platform to scale linearly while keeping performance, consistency, and code complexity constant.
Each instance of RhoVM is lightweight and multi-threaded, so multiple high-performance instances can exist on a single node. Thus, applications on RChain achieve unprecedented throughput, availability, and response time, opening a new landscape of decentralized applications suitable for the modern market.
The visibility of a blockchain and its smart contracts, to other contracts on the network, is determined by the blockchain’s namespace.
Namespaces offer developers a semi-automated framework to collocate and execute sets of contracts based on their features, dependencies, and behavioral patterns.
These properties can be checked statically to help developers construct type-safe environmental policies on encryption, supported interfaces, economic protocols, identity, and much more.
RChain contracts are internally concurrent. They leverage a message-passing paradigm to optimize responsiveness, offering a more dynamic and sophisticated smart contract ecosystem.
In addition to concurrency, smart contracts enjoy a number of industry-leading functions:
Meta-programming
Reactive Data Streams
Pattern Matching
As a result, RChain contracts are matchless in throughput and programmability. What's more, every line of code on RChain obeys a well-tested, formal model of concurrent computation, allowing automatic formal verification for highly scalable contracts.
RChain was the culmination of a number of innovations by founder Greg Meredith. The core of RChain is based on mobile process calculi, a branch of mathematics with approximately 30 years of history. Together with the experience of other blockchains and other technology, the RChain architecture was documented in July of 2016 and at that time, the goal was to create a blockchain-based social network with inbuilt micropayments functionality i.e. attention economy. Due to the complexity of the project and disagreement between the team members, it was decided that Greg would focus on realizing the vision of RChain. The RChain organizations (the Co-op and Holdings company) were formed in December 2016 - January 2017.
The RChain Cooperative and RChain Holdings are both Internet companies and have participants around the world. They are Washington State USA companies and the founders live in Seattle.
The Co-op is a member-driven organization with an elected nine-person Board of Directors. Board seats have 3, 2, or 1 year terms. The board is composed of:
3 years: Greg Meredith, Vlad Zamfir, Ian Bloom
2 years: Kenny Rowe, Evan Jensen, Alexandr Bulkin
1 year: Navneet Suman, Hendrik Jan Hilbolling, David Currin
The Co-op officers are: Greg Meredith, President; Evan Jensen, Secretary; Lisa Rice, Treasurer.
There are three steering committees where Members collaborate to shape and organize the Cooperative: the Executive Committee, the Governance Committee, and the Compensation Committee. All committees have open participation but some are limited to 11 working members plus a chair.
