Swiss blockchain technology company ShapeShift AG announced the launch of Prism – a digital asset trading network built entirely upon Ethereum-based smart contracts.
Prism is a platform upon which humans and machines can acquire exposure to portfolios of digital assets without trusting a counterparty. These portfolios (called “Prisms”) are customizable in size, allocation, and duration. One acquires a Prism using nothing but an Ethereum wallet as the tool, and Ether as the collateral.
The Prism portfolios are fully-collateralized by both parties, so there is no risk of non-performance. Risk is minimized: with trust placed in objective open-source code, instead of upon the subjective whims of a human counter-party.
ShapeShift commented:
Inevitably, an economy is more efficient, honest, productive and fair to the extent it is built upon the laws of code and mathematics, instead of the laws of men. Pre-blockchain, that was impossible. Upon products like Prism, it is our hope that some day it won’t merely be possible, but indeed the expectation, that finance itself becomes provably fair; not by the decree of politicians, but by the demanded security and supplied innovation of a marketplace set free. Society deserves nothing less.
While Prism is, in a sense, an exchange platform, to our knowledge nothing like it has ever existed in a live, production capacity. No bank or traditional financial institution, with their billions in capital and polished claims of consumer protection, has ever brought something like this to market.
ShapeShift also shared that is looking forward to bringing this product to Rootstock (RSK) on Bitcoin in the near future.
Prism is currently in closed invite-only beta, but operating on the live Ethereum network. It should not yet be considered “trustless.” The code is not yet open-source (though it will be prior to full release). Further, there is an escape hatch currently built into the smart contract code, which enables ShapeShift to withdraw and secure the collateral if smart contract bugs are discovered.
A formal independent security audit was conducted earlier this year by Piper Merriam, and two other independent audits will be conducted prior to Prism leaving beta.
Please note that Prism is currently an invite-only beta product, and that invites are granted periodically at the discretion of ShapeShift.