Peter Todd Joins Viacoin Development Team as Chief Scientist

Bitcoin Core developer and current Coinkite advisor Peter Todd has been hired by the Viacoin development team to work on a Bitcoin 2.0 technology concept.

Todd will serve as chief scientist and advisor on both the Viacoin core project and the decentralized smart contract platform ClearingHouse, which is being developed in tandem with Viacoin.

The primary focus of his work will be treechains, a concept created by Todd that allows for block chain scalability and side-chain coordination. Furthermore, treechains promote a greater degree of mining decentralization – a key issue facing the digital currency community today.

According to the official announcement, posted on the viacoin development bloghttp://blog.viacoin.org/2014/07/31/viacoin-hires-peter-todd.html, Todd’s work will allow for greater versatility and complexity of block-chain utilization – something that will enable the technology to be used on a larger scale in the broader economy. Tree Chains will ultimately be integrated into viacoin, serving as the basis of a broader build-out of its block chain and the protocols being developed for it.

Todd told CoinDesk:

"My goals with treechains are permissionless development, decentralizing mining, and making bitcoin scale. I want to allow anyone with a new idea for a decentralized consensus system the chance to compete on a level playing field; treechains is that playing field."

The growth of Bitcoin 2.0

As a developer, Todd is no stranger to either decentralized smart block-chain platforms or Bitcoin 2.0 projects. In addition to his work with Coinkite as chief naysayer and the Bitcoin Core project, Todd has been involved with the development of mastercoin, Counterparty and coloured coins. Notably, Todd resigned from the Mastercoin project following the announcement that he was working with the Viacoin team.

ClearingHouse, like Counterparty – a platform on which ClearingHouse is based – allows for the creation and deployment of a variety of smart contracts and actions. Todd’s treechains concept enables greater coordination and communication between block chains, a potential application that would make smart transactions simpler to conduct.

As such, the impact on digital currency development is significant. Viacoin told CoinDesk:

“Giving Peter the necessary resources to research and develop treechains will have a lasting impact on decentralised consensus-based systems. Mining centralization is an undisputed problem and if you extrapolate it to its logical conclusion, will spell the death of decentralised consensus.”