Leveraging Google Cloud to make decentralized finance faster, more scalable and secure

Editor's note: This is the second of a three part series from the BCW Group, a Web3 venture studio and enterprise consulting firm serving enterprise clients who want to integrate existing products or otherwise branch into the Web3 space. Today's blog will discuss how Hashport uses Google Cloud as the scaffold for its decentralized interoperability, data, and node operations. You can read the first post here.

Hashport is a bridging utility with the core function of facilitating the movement of digital assets between blockchain networks and the open-source Hedera public ledger. Hashport's governance structure reflects the hybrid-decentralization of its parent network, with industry-leading organizations enlisted to support its independent validator set. The Hashport team is currently working to adapt its existing bridging modules to accommodate more enterprise-focused use cases and specialized industries, which is reflected in the creation of Hashport’s Pro feature sets. This includes integrations between bridging aggregators, custom payment channels, and the launch of an enterprise-grade, Hedera-native blockchain oracle service called Axiom.

BCW has played a critical role in Hashport's evolution, from ideation to development, to deployment and beyond. As part of Hashport's validator set, BCW manages daily platform operations and verifies transactions by running one of the validator nodes. By combining BCW’s Web3 acumen with Hashport’s interoperability expertise, the platform adheres to the highest of standards. The teams involved reflect the persistence of positive industry values and the discipline of an enterprise-grade program.

The foundation of Hashport's core functionality lies in its validator set. The validators (written in GoLang) work in concert with multiple protocols to facilitate asset bridging while maintaining a shared state that tracks bridging functions, smart contract status, the Hedera Token Service (HTS), and user-generated receipts. Google Cloud is an ideal choice for simplifying the management of Hashport’s validators and core network integrations such as Ethereum and the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain network.

One critical aspect of managing validators for multiple organizations is ensuring robust security, particularly for secure key computation. Google Cloud offers a range of security options such as confidential computing using AMD EPYC processors. Although each validator makes their own management decisions according to their institutional requirements, Hashport provides guidance, suggesting best practices wherever possible. 

Hashport's functionality also extends to nodes. Google Cloud's Blockchain Node Engine enhances the ease and efficiency of running and managing nodes on Hashport’s network, ensuring strong performance and security. This powerful tool integrates seamlessly with Google Cloud’s other features, such as Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) internal networks, Network Intelligence Center (NIC), and performance monitoring.

As the Decentralized Finance (DeFI) landscape continues to evolve, the role of cloud services becomes increasingly relevant. Google Cloud offers a robust infrastructure that fosters innovation while ensuring security, making it an ideal choice for Hashport. The combination of Google Cloud's advanced technology and the potential of decentralized finance highlights the importance of a balanced approach when discussing the future of the industry.

Google Cloud is known for its user-friendly interface and streamlined administrative features. As a Web3 bridging solution, Hashport harnesses Google Cloud’s usability, roles, groups, and BigTable integration for efficient infrastructure management. This is particularly useful when managing multiple services and nodes owned by a diverse set of companies with individual requirements. Leveraging Google Cloud's intuitive interface and granular access control through Identity and Access Management (IAM) lets developers seamlessly access resources and assign permissions even across organizations.

Extensive documentation and workflow assistance, including guides on billing units and crypto funding complexities, further enhance Google Cloud's usability in the Web3 space. BigTable, a highly-scalable NoSQL database, is vital to Hashport's data processing and storage needs. The low-latency and high-throughput capabilities of Google Cloud  enables the efficient management of Web3 transactions. Google Cloud’s usability, roles, groups, and BigTable integrations all contribute to Hashport's operational success, providing a seamless experience in managing its infrastructure.  Emerging Hashport initiatives, such as the Hashport Pro platform, address the rising demand for dependable enterprise-grade Web3 solutions. To manage the increasing volume of transactions and varied data flows, a robust infrastructure like Google Cloud is needed for efficient processing. 

Hashport is a decentralized interoperability platform, and the team communicates with many organizations across its supported networks and beyond. These discussions help the team to better understand the complexities and challenges of DeFi applications and the often idiosyncratic needs of enterprises and SMEs as they look to enter the Web3 space. 

Over time, the Hashport team identified a specific need for enterprise-grade data oracles to extend the capabilities of building on the Hedera Public Network. This need coincided with the team’s  understanding for the potential of Hashport’s validator swarm to not only secure and validate transactions for token bridging, but also to transfer generic data between Hedera services and its connected Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystems. This led to the establishment of Axiom, an enterprise-grade, Hedera-native data oracle service.

As an integral part of Hashport Pro, Axiom utilizes the platform's robust validator infrastructure to ensure that secure and reliable data transmission occurs between Hedera and EVM-based platforms. Axiom compliments Hashport’s existing infrastructure to significantly improve interoperability between Hedera and other Hashport connected networks. Google Cloud’s scalability features and Google Kubernetes Engine deployments, along with the ability to scale via resource pools, will in turn help to reduce architecting time and optimize workflows among all parties as the platform is rolled out.

Google Cloud’s data management capabilities make it an ideal choice for supporting the growth of Hashport and Axiom. The reliability and scalability of Google Cloud is crucial for a decentralized oracle service which requires a robust infrastructure for precise data handling. Moreover, Hashport can leverage additional Google Cloud resources, like the Google Cloud Marketplace and Partner Interconnect, to broaden its network and engage with a wider customer and partner base.

Google Cloud's data management, processing, and alternative channels provide a strong foundation for Hashport’s continued success. The features and functionalities that Google Cloud provides are essential to the platform's overall growth strategy, allowing Hashport to deliver secure Web3 solutions and meet changing market demands as needed.