The BSV blockchain offers governments, enterprises and developers a powerful feature-set to bring their projects into the realm of web3. However, this powerful technology means nothing if developers are unable to fully utilise these features and don’t have the tools to build on the blockchain. Fortunately, the BSV Association has an entire team dedicated to providing developers with the tools to build and grow successfully.
‘Our job is to provide developers all the tools that they need to develop applications using the blockchain,’ said Thomas Giacomo, at the BSV Association. ‘This means that we take care of tools such as the LiteClient toolbox but also Bitcoin ARC. And we are going to take care of the different libraries and provide developer tools, allowing them to have the best developing experience.’
An introduction to ARC – Bitcoin transaction processor
ARC is designed to connect to every mining node on the network and includes peering logic, retry logic for transaction tracking, transaction validation, and an API for clients. It also calculates Merkle paths for broadcasted transactions. ARC’s microservices include the API server, validator (with the ability to scale for increased workload), metamorph for managing changing transaction statuses, and a peer manager to handle connections.
Additionally, ARC stores a new format of blocks containing transaction IDs rather than full transaction data. This architecture aims to enhance transaction reliability and efficiency in the Bitcoin network. ARC consists of four microservices: the API, Metamorph, BlockTX and Callbacker.
‘Bitcoin ARC is the next generation of mAPI – the onramp for transactions,’ said Thomas. ‘The goal of Bitcoin ARC is to improve the efficiency of sending transactions and broadcasting transactions to the chain. The main difference between ARC and mAPI is that it relied on an RPC node interface and with ARC the transitions will be broadcasted directly to the network peer-to-peer. This will increase the connectivity and also decrease the cost of sending any transactions on the chain.’
Giving developers the best tools for the job
Thomaso explained that the goal of any of these tools is to make sure that the Association provides the best infrastructure – allowing developers to build great applications.
‘What we are doing is that we are making sure that this is the fastest, cheapest and most secure blockchain on earth. So the goal will be on the speed side to make sure that thanks to ARC, but also LiteClient and Teranode. that will be the cheapest blockchain on earth from a cost perspective. Thanks to this light infrastructure, wallet providers will be able to decrease their costs. Also, from a security point of view, we are going to take care also of tools to steward the protocol and to make sure that the protocol is legally compliant.’
Find out more about ARC in our new webinar
On October 4, 2023, Thomas and Darren Kellenschwiler (Utilisation Technical Lead at the BSV Association) hosted the webinar ‘Meet ARC – the new and improved way to broadcast’.
The webinar aimed to introduce ARC’s features and advantages, highlight the differences from mAPI and improve transparency within the ecosystem regarding upcoming infrastructure changes. You can watch the webinar and find a full summary of the technology here.
