Chinese cloud-based acceleration company Xunlei has announced the launch of two new products to foster the development of a blockchain ecosystem, allowing companies to transition to the cloud and manage decentralized apps (dApps).
The NASDAQ-listed company launched StellarCloud and ThunderChain Open Platform in Beijing on May 16, 2018.
Stellarcloud marks an expansion from content delivery network services to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) for the company. Xunlei allows users of their blockchain-based OneThing Cloud to share idle computing resources in exchange for LinkToken. Users can trade this for products and services that companies develop on ThunderChain or StellarCloud. Enterprise users can exchange LinkToken for idle computing power shared by users.
ThunderChain allows companies to build and manage Dapps that can process 1 million transactions a second.
The company says its platform will create a Blockchain 3.0 ecosystem involving millions of users. “Incentive and trust are two main issues facing not only shared computing, but also every sharing economy model in today’s digital age,” Xunlei CEO, Chen Lei, said in a statement. “The emergence of blockchain technology – featuring immutability, openness, and fairness – provides efficient solutions to some of the pressing problems we encounter today.”
In October 2017, the company announced its first blockchain-based product, hoping to move from being a traditional internet company to one that is progressive in its exploration of new technologies. The launch came amid a cryptocurrency ban in China, but Xunlei said that the OnceCoin token which was introduced at the time was not a currency, adding that it couldn’t be traded for cash.
Initially known for file sharing and downloading services, Xunlei began moving towards cloud computing in 2014. On May 15, the company’s share price dropped by 7% after announcing its 2018 Q1 results. Despite reporting a 118% year-on-year increase in revenue, it was down 4.4% from last quarter. Revenue from cloud computing saw a quarterly drop of 7%.
This article was updated on May 18, 2018, to correct the statement that Xunlei launched its StellarCloud and ThunderChain Open Platform on May 16, 2018. The two products were launched on May 17, 2018.