We’re kicking off monthly highlights of our Cascadia Blockchain Council member companies with Dragonchain.  They’re headquartered just over the bridge in Bellevue headed up by Joe Roets (CEO), Jonel Cordero (COO), Shirly Roets (CAO), and recently hired, Lawrence Lerner (President, Consulting Services). They’ve been out at our monthly community happy hours several times and are actively working to get to know the community here in the Pacific Northwest. If you didn’t know, they were also the recipient of an award last month for their Blockchain Tech Impact by Seattle Business Magazine, alongside another Council member, Strix Leviathan with Jesse Proudman (CEO). While many of us locally know that Dragonchain is here, many of us don’t really know what Dragonchain does – so we thought this would be a good opportunity to help us get to know them. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to myself, or Joe. Go see them in person one-on-one or visit their office: they’re very friendly and open and welcome “all humans”.

1. Tell us about your company and the problem you’re trying to solve.

Dragonchain is a Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform, originally developed in-house at The Walt Disney Company. In 2016 the platform was open-sourced, and The Dragon Company was born. Designed from the ground up to be enterprise-fist yet leverage the decentralized nature of blockchain, Dragonchain is a turnkey for hybrid deployments in the cloud or on-premises. The platform is ready to run in the enterprise data center strategy and existing IT infrastructure. 

Dragonchain was born to make blockchain easily accessible and practical in the enterprise. Enterprise IT can re-use existing talent and assets out of the box with the technology.

Despite having different objectives and intended use cases, a majority of these users have experienced similar pain points and obstacles. Some common problems some major industries are currently facing are:

Supply Chain

• Lack of traceability
• No single source of identifiable truth 

Finance

• Onboarding of redundant data sets as in insurance

IoT 

• Dependence on a centralized architecture
• Security issues

Human Resources

• Verifying credentials and background checks
• Extensive paperwork processes
• Transfer employee data between employers

2. How is your company using blockchain and why is it the best solution for the problem you’re trying to solve?

Dragonchain was developed by design to solve ongoing and underserved problems related to the management of enterprise digital assets, digital identity, and micro-payments; all at scale and all global-ready. 

Key features:

• Built to solve the needs of high-volume enterprises like Disney.
• Designed to leverage existing enterprise assets, skills, systems, and personnel.
• Architected to deploy Smart Contracts written in modern programming languages such as Python, Java, Go, Node.js, C#, and more.
• Segregated and independently scalable consensus layers built for performance with smaller attack vectors.
• Interoperable with other blockchains. Through Dragonchain’s Layer-5, more than 7,400 transactions have been completed across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic. More blockchain connectors are in development and we’re happy to work with the customers on their needs.

3. What about blockchain gets you most excited for the future?

Adoption and onboarding of real-world use cases and applications are taking off using Dragonchain as the technology enabler. The future opportunities are boundless, and we at The Dragon Company don’t know all the possibilities or outcomes yet. We believe in enabling peer-to-peer networks of value.

4. What are some of your greatest wins as a company?

Recently, we were honored to be recognized in the local Seattle/Bellevue community:

• Eastside Small Business of the Year 2019 by the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce
• Tech Impact Awards, Gold Winner in the Blockchain Category by Seattle Business Magazine

List Patents

• Interchain Technology Patent – blockchain technology use cases redefined to enable interoperability with any other blockchain network such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Private Ethereum, and more.
• Tokenized Micro-license Patent – a new business model for software access. It allows the local holding of licenses much like early software license models, yet allows for vendor or decentralized hosting of the software services. License ownership is recorded on the blockchain and decentralizes ownership and control.
• Blockchain Loyalty System Patent – a new consensus mechanism, Proof of Time, tracking and monetizing time with blockchain to implement new, or enhance existing loyalty and rewards programs.

Network metrics

• Over 7,400 Interchain transactions
• Over 600 nodes created and live

Run with the enterprise and developers in parallel. They are equally important.

5. What’s next for your company?

Dragonchain’s mission is to continue providing innovative software, in the form of Blockchain-as-a-Service, to enterprises and individual developers. We aim to be the global leader in blockchain technology applications. With unprecedented flexibility, fast time to market, and security to its customers, developers, and the global community, we are expanding from our domestic target customer base to a more global perspective.

In addition, we are continuing to build upon our core values of liberty, fundamentals, and innovation. This includes progressing the adoption of blockchain technology, by enabling interoperability between major blockchain networks through our patented Interchain technology, and a continued passion to provide innovative solutions. All based on trust, scarcity, and market principles unique to blockchain.

All humans are welcome.

6. What’s one thing you need help with right now?

Our current focus is Outreach/Networking.

Two areas of deep interest are Enterprise stakeholders and node operators. Dragonchain solves immediate problems for the enterprise. We’re ready to engage with stakeholders ready to solve issues driven by legacy processes, too many handoffs and changing regulatory needs.

More node operators are key to the growth of the network. We see our operators as ambassadors of Dragonchain.

7. Are you hiring?  If so, what roles?

Yes, we are looking for developer and marketing talent. You can click here to apply.