Smartlink Expands Secure Web 3.0 Escrow Protocol Ecosystem With A New CEA Partnership

Data privacy has emerged as one of the most critical problems of the global financial ecosystem. From ecommerce transactions to cross-border trading, receiving and sending payments to exchange goods and services, everything is driven by “trust.”

While the traditional financial market has several conduits that play the role of mediator in facilitating transactions, the internet is quickly transitioning to Web 3.0 – the decentralized version of the existing, more centralized internet (Web 2.0).  Accordingly, the growing decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem needs a decentralized platform that can help maintain the “trust” between parties.

Powered by the Tezos blockchain, Smartlink, the trust-as-a-service provider for Web 3.0, aims to solve this dilemma using its escrow smart contracts to enable users to buy and sell goods and services without having to rely on any centralized authority.

Trust-As-A-Service Solution For The Decentralized Web

Founded in 2020, Smartlink is on a mission to introduce trustless applications for the decentralized web by comprehensively addressing the risks of losing money to scams and online frauds. The blockchain-based smart contract also eliminates the high fees of P2P marketplaces and cross-border transactions, costs of traditional fundraising, and the excessive reliance on legacy systems. 

Developed by a team of researchers, entrepreneurs, cryptography and financial experts, blockchain developers, and PhDs, the Smartlink platform offers escrow services and payments processing based on institutional-grade smart contracts. 

This year, the Smartlink team has made significant progress in terms of product development. As the team optimizes the features, the escrow smart contracts will be rolled out in multiple phases. Some of the modules have already been tested and audited and are ready to be added in the final integration, while other promising features remain under development.

To further accelerate the development, Smartlink has also partnered with the CEA Research Center, ranked as the “World’s Most Innovative Research Institution” by Reuters. The CEA team commands extensive experience working alongside some of the most prominent blockchain companies, including Vinci Technologies, Engie, Alstom, and Tezos Tenderbake among others.

Together with the CEA team, Smartlink aims to identify a foolproof framework for its escrow module to function seamlessly with both digital and physical products. As part of the partnership, the first development covers the realm of digital products. Smartlink has rolled out its first escrow implementation for digital products called Smartlink Escrow V 1— Digital Products. 

A spokesperson from the CEA team commented on the partnership, noting,

“Smartlink ecosystem is the first to provide a full, non-custodial escrow service as well as a marketplace that allows users to exchange goods and services using cryptocurrencies. Exchanges are secured through fiduciary deposits on decentralized escrow accounts and implemented by #smartcontracts, without the intervention of a central supervisory authority. This allows for more transparent exchanges that escape censorship.”

Through this, Smartlink will be offering the Smartlink Locker alongside the token vesting feature, which will be opened for multiple beneficiaries holding Tezos (XTZ) tokens. By design, this vesting contract is fully scalable, enabling users to add an unlimited number of beneficiaries, where each beneficiary can have different amounts of tokens, time, and revocability conditions. 

In addition to this, the collaboration between the CEA and Smartlink teams has flagged off the multi-phase rollout of escrow smart contract modules. For starters, Smartlink has enabled its escrow service for a range of digital products, allowing users to escrow XTZ tokens, NFTs, synthetic assets, and perform OTC trades via one-on-one transactions. Other features like conditional settings will be rolled out in the later releases. The partnership with CEA will extend gradually to ensure that the best possible model is properly implemented for each escrow module for digital products.

For now, Smartlink has entered a new phase whereby it is forging partnerships to test out its different product iterations. To expand its offerings for physical products, the Smartlink team also plans to work alongside shipping companies, marketplaces, e-commerce sites, and various blockchain projects. To further protect its users’ information, Smartlink plans to introduce multi-level security measures in the coming months. Data will be stored in a local database or a decentralized data storage service, such as IPFS, once implemented.

On hitting multiple milestones this year and the company’s future plans, Ben Constanty, CEO and Co-founder of Smartlink, adds,

“We’re developing a solution that bridges the current trust deficit in retail and commercial transactions using smart contracts, which is a huge undertaking. Having a partner like the CEA at our side provides us with industry expertise and experience to foresee all the potential approaches and challenges we need to address through our escrow solution.”