multiCaaS

The multiCaaS project is a result of my last few years of interest in MultiChain and digital blockchain ledgers in general. When the 'crypto craze' hit a few years back of course I felt left behind like everyone else, not because I owned zero bitcoins. Well, to be honest having no bitcoins does suck...but I digress.

Instead, I felt left behind because here was a technology that had been around for years and I knew very little about the details surrounding it or how the mechanism for such even functioned. Thus began a journey.

I spent a fair amount of time learning about blockchains, specifically MultiChain, and developed a C# wrapper for MultiChain named MCWrapper which supports both Json-RPC connections and Command Line Interface binary manipulation via any supported C# codebase.

After getting MCWrapper to the point where I felt it offered decent API support for MultiChain C# users I started to get the urge to use it underneath a web-service or WebAPI to expose the ease of use it provides. I decided up front that I wasn't entirely interested in the crypto-currency portion of digital blockchain ledgers, I was and am mainly interested in the mechanics of digital ledger devices. My decision pairs well with MultiChain, while MultiChain does support native currency the project is concentrated more toward private digital ledgers and secure node communication.

Despite my lack of interest in native currency, my first attempt was at myndcoin.com which was an attempt at hosting images on a blockchain and concentrated on the native currency aspect of digital ledgers. Technically myndcoin.com worked but no users were attracted so I shut the site down and archived the project.

My second attempt at using MultiChain and MCWrapper in the real-world was and is entropybc.com, which generates an entropy beacon based on digital ledger transaction data. At the moment the backing WebAPI, api.entropybc.com, exposes a decent selection of MultiChain blockchain methods. However, the additional methods will be removed soon and reintroduced here at multiCaaS. EntropyBC will remain active simply as an entropy beacon only. All other features will be removed at some point.

This brings us to today. I propped up multiCaaS.com recently and made a commitment to only exposing direct MultiChain functionality via a web interface that is easy and free to use for both unregistered and registered multiCaaS users. Eventually, I would like to offer a paid service...that day is not today though. Feel free to buy me a coffee if you are feeling generous. Or, if you are a Brave browser user, you can tip me with Basic Attention Tokens (BAT).

Using multiCaaS is simple. A user must configure our dashboard with their target MultiChain node connection information, select a Json-RPC client, select a Json-RPC client method, complete any required additional fields, and then transmit the request. Any response generated by the target node will be displayed on the dashboard as well. MultiCaaS does offer users the option to store the dashbaord configuration in their browser's local storage, this is not required to use the dashboard though. If or when a user decides to store their configuration values, the values are encrypted before they are placed in the web-browser's local storage. When a user decides to store their multiCaaS dashboard configuration, the configuration values are preloaded when returning to the dashboard.

Concerning user data and configuration data privacy. Unregistered users have zero information stored on our servers. Registered users will only have their account information stored, all dashboard node configurations are stored securely in the user's browser's local storage and never in our database. I am not interested in being responsible for such sensitive data, always change your rpcpassword on a regular basis and do not forget to restrict connections using the rpcallowip parameter. My goal is to offer a functional, responsive, Ad & Tracking pixel free, tool for MultiChain node administrators. Or, just for those wanting to experiment with blockchain technology.

Please feel free to check out my GitHub, NuGet, LinkedIn, or Developer profile pages.

Thanks for stopping by! Ryan.