Factom is an Open-Source project that provides a way to build applications on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Factom began by providing proof of existence services, but then moved on to provide proof of existence of transforms. A list of such entries can be thought of as a Factom Chain. Factom can be used to implement private tokens, smart contracts, smart properties, and more.
Factom leverages the Bitcoin Blockchain, but in a way that minimizes the amount of data actually inserted in the Blockchain. Thus it provides a mechanism for creating Bitcoin 2.0 services for the trading of assets, securities, commodities, or other complex applications without increasing blockchain "pollution".
We are very much at an Alpha level of development. We have a demo client and a Factom server prototype which runs against the testnet3 Bitcoin network. Please check the development branch for latest.
You need to set up Go environment and install the following packages:
- https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd
- https://github.com/btcsuite/btcwallet
- https://github.com/factomproject/factomcode
After installing and setting up Go, btcd, and btcwallet, the following command will obtain FactomCode, all dependencies, and install them (completing step 3 above):
$ go get -u github.com/factomproject/factomcode/...
If you receive an error mentioning that go "Cannot download... godoc.org uses insecure protocol" and you have verified that godoc.org is the only domain/resource that is insecurely loading (via http rather than https), you can use the "-insecure" flag to bypass the problem, like so:
$ go get -insecure -u github.com/factomproject/factomcode/...
Note: the "warning: code.google.com is shutting down" warnings which may appear during installation/setup can safely be ignored.