Is Bridge Protocol decentralized, why or why not?

The question we seem to get almost everyday is regarding decentralization. This definition is blurry in the blockchain space since the most popular networks still have governing figures that are authorized to make protocol changes. But, the answer for Bridge is yes and no; Bridge aims to be the best of both worlds.

The Bridge blockchain is being designed with the key characteristics of blockchain in mind — immutability, trust layers and transparency. Our design goals will allow businesses like banks, financial institutions, etc to run federated nodes to manage a network of data, only the data they need for a common benefit. The direct use-case ties directly to Bridge and identity management. New FinCen and GDPR compliance concerns are raising large concerns for businesses.

A prime example is for banks and money laundering regulations. A new FinCen rule states that transaction records must now be held for five years, re-certify customers for fraud and each bank must comply starting in May 2018. We found a lot of these customer checks are redundant, costly and time consuming for their enterprises. Bridge will aim to connect banks to their branches and other non-branches for the common purpose to trust and design a real-live database that helps them stay compliant. Wouldn’t it be better if companies could check an identity through a public address and search these records without compromising security of their customer?

One of the most exciting projects that the Bridge team is researching is BigChainDB. Their framework can help us design systems that can cross reference data sources to detect fraud. Bridge becomes a transparent shared ledger; an immutable system for record-keeping where transactions can be ordered and grouped into blocks. Timestamps and multiple parties can query the database to get whatever data they want, wherever it might happen to be stored and agree on the truth.

Identity management is the primary focus for now, but many industries can benefit from a permission-able system that can be assigned roles of authority. If blockchains are going to be utilized by big business, then this is the right first step.