Bitcoin Forum

Microsoft, the $561 bln US-based technology company, has released the Confidential Consortium (Coco) Framework, an Ethereum-based protocol which commercial companies and large-scale organizations will be able to utilize to process information on the Ethereum Blockchain with increased privacy.

In an official announcement, Mark Russinovich, the CTO at Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud computing arm, said:

    “Coco presents an alternative approach to ledger construction, giving enterprises the scalability, distributed governance and enhanced confidentiality they need without sacrificing the inherent security and immutability they expect.”

One of the most unique aspects of the Coco Framework is that it leverages local hardware-based environments such as Intel’s trusted execution environments (TEEs), to facilitate the settlement of information in an off-chain Ethereum Blockchain ecosystem.

By processing data in a separate ecosystem, it allows Microsoft to provide a more functional and flexible infrastructure for decentralized applications.
Processing information with the help of Blockchain

Previously, Cornell professor Emin Gun Sirer proposed a solution that leverages Intel’s TEE to settle Bitcoin transactions. In essence, Microsoft’s Coco Framework is similar, but utilizes smart contracts and the Ethereum protocol to focus on processing information.

More importantly, as Fred Ehrsam, the co-founder of Coinbase noted, Ethereum needs off-chain infrastructures like the Coco Framework if it aims to enable commercial organizations to process large amounts of information.

Tom Racette, the vice president at Mojix, stated that the Coco Frameworks expands the flexibility of the existing Ethereum protocol to host decentralized applications more efficiently.

"Being able to run our existing supply chain Dapp code much faster within Coco framework is a great performance improvement that will reduce friction when we talk about enterprise Blockchain readiness with our retail customers. Adding data confidentiality support without sacrificing this improvement is what will enable us to lead the digital transformation we are envisioning with Smart Supply Chains,” said Racette.
Off-chain scaling solutions

Cointelegraph previously reported that Ethereum needs off-chain scaling solutions and improvement by 100-fold in terms of scalability in order to efficiently power decentralized applications with one to 10 mln users.

At the time, Ehrsam noted:

    “These are hard computer science and game theory problems. Most of them have never been solved before. Estimating completion can be hard and can be far off. Large apps can’t run solely on-chain and likely never will. They need off-chain scaling solutions. While it’s tricky to make accurate estimates when combining scaling improvements, it’s conceivable we could see a 100x improvement by the end of 2018, which would allow a 1–10m user app.”

Microsoft’s Coco Framework and some other smart contract-based platforms that are being developed by organizations within the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance will further enhance Ethereum’s scalability by leveraging off-chain solutions and as a result, allow decentralized applications to secure active userbases and process large amounts of data without running into conflict with security issues.

From Cointelegraph.

I love when i see giants like microsoft getting involved like that, could you believe it a few years ago ? I certainly did  ;D
Let's embrace crypto becoming important like that

Oh, this is a very serious news. I hope the ethereum will react positively to it.

this is s great development that can attract more companies and investors for Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) where the Microsoft Confidential Consortium(CoCo) framework enhances privacy for enterprise transactions. Another good investments from Microsoft which signals the ETH a price hike if this project will push through.

In that case of big giants becoming that possible to venture with crypto currency ethereum, I think it's one of the awesome idea that digital currency will turn out a better future for ethereum. So it's a big welcome for everybody who holds that currency now, and despite of the challenging situation of it's price microsoft is a great help for ethereum to compete in the exchange markets and gather more investors now and then.

this does NOT seem to be related to ethereum at all!!!

this is yet another rookie mistake that is becoming very common in the community. for years they have been saying "banks are adopting bitcoin" but they never made such claims, they have always showed interest in the underlying technology not the coin itself.

and this is the same with ethereum.
Microsoft, the $561 bln US-based technology company will NEVER touch ethereum but will adopt its open source technology for free and improves it and removes all the bugs and centralization of ETH and adds its own centralization instead.

that make sense!

Microsoft launch an ICO here? your having a laugh! ;D

they were pro bitcoin at the beginning or not? and then they removed it, but they said they made a mistake and after that they re-introduced bitcoin, i hope they don't do the same thing with ethereum

It seems microsoft take over the technology market again with the blockchain tech while other companies facebook, google etc. have do nothing.

Ah this looks great!

Once more names like Microsoft start getting into the crypotech, we will surely see rise in the most popular coins.

Great news! 8)

Many open source projects eventually were bought buy big corporations, maybe similar destiny awaits crypto projects as well

Is this legit?, i know billgates is keeping an eye on cryptos but i think he's rooting for bitcoin. If so, this is a good thing for ethereum. Vitalik X Billgates? Wow never imagined.

That doesn't give a surprise for me, The company try to take the basic method to develop the future technology through the distribution of the blockchain infrastructure. That makes sense at all.
In other words that the company such as microsoft already seen an opportunity in there.

They thought "protocol" means ETHEREUM itself but going for ETH? Why would they when they are already involved in Bitcoins?
Bill Gates has invested as well as promoting Bitcoins since much more time and I think even if they decide to go for ETH as well as any other cryptos, then it's a sign of extremity and will boost these cryptocurrencies a lot in the near future.

Clash of titans? Opps! I dont think that Vitalik is a titan (lol). Same as you said i do believe that Bill Gates would go for Bitcoin but If this news is true maybe he changed his mind and would rather choose up ETH instead and i cant blame him since he would probably longing for the smart contracts features of ETH which cant be found on Bitcoin and for those ETH holders for sure would really love this news if its true.

ETH smart contracts is being used in real life,will this message  take the price of ETH to the moon?