Coinbase Backed ConsenSys Alum: To Build GitHub for Web3

Most of developers uses GitHub to organize and share open-source code. Some funds like Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global and also Digital Currency Group are looking on a crypto-native alternative as per Coindesk report.

Harrison Hines former ConsenSys token guru now CEO of his own startup company, Terminal. The company closed a $3.7 million seed in late 2018 for a developer hub mainly built for decentralize dapps. This Hub also went live over the summer and a soft launch ongoing this week.

Compared to Microsoft-owned GitHub, this requires a workaround in order to use smart contracts. Harrison also added that Web3 developers will be able to deploy software directly from the Terminal Platform. MakerDAO stablecoin loans are projects who rely on smart contracts (software that automatically executes business logic) to safeguard hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.

MakerDAO engineer Vamsi Alluri also said:

“For a large ecosystem like MakerDAO with tons of smart contracts live, Terminal allows us to curate starting points for developers tailored exactly for their needs”

Janison Sivarajah, Terminal’s CTO said the platform was designed for Web3. The shorthand for the internet populated by applications that aren’t hosted or controlled by a single entity.

“When that smart contract is actually deployed on the blockchain, it is a live object that lives on one of these decentralized protocols. People need an interface to surface them, view data about them and interact with them. You can’t do that on GitHub.”

They also offers limited node services for free. Direct conduits to external infrastructure providers like Infura or BlockCypher.

Growth

The company’s freemium business model calls on hope that, like GitHub, majority of developers will eventually pay for premium support services.

Jacob Evans, Engineer of Ox an Exchange startup said:

“Alerting and notifications are just one feature in Terminal and it is a feature we have been exploring the most to assist 0x developers”

Regarding the experiment, Terminal is running seven different nodes to support projects using blockchains like xDAI, Rootstock and POA. Sivarajah said:

“A contract on ethereum can easily be deployed on any of the other networks that use the EVM [ethereum virtual machine] blockchain and we will also see which other frameworks are gaining traction.”