Permissioned chains can be good for public Ethereum — if we allow them
New enterprise and government solutions (Permissioned chains) built on Ethereum pops up every day. However, they don’t use the public Ethereum main chain. They are ‘forks.’ Not a fork of the Ethereum network, but forks of the Ethereum codebase. These kinds of forks are usual in the open-source community.
The worst-case that EU EBSI converts 300 million citizens to Ethereum users
Sometimes improvements made in forks are contributed back into the original project. An example of this is how Google contributes back to Linux. However, sometimes these forks go off under new branding and start developing new standards incompatible with the original project.
What’s the Problem?
Permissioned chains are indifferent to the politics and values of the Ethereum community. They don’t have to contribute back, but more dangerously to the Ethereum community, they don’t need to be compatible with the original codebase. They can either fork off a parallel road to Ethereum or fork off ‘an exit’, going at a divergent path.
My main point in this blog post is making the case that:
- It should be one main goal of the Ethereum Foundations to help and insist on Permission chains to be ‘parallel roads.’
- Nay, not only the EF. It should be a goal for all of us.
- This will allow code improvements, features, tooling, and wallets to be used across all the different chains in an ecosystem of ecosystems.
- And in turn, Ethereum will benefit massively.
I fear that the Permissioned chains’ neutrality means they create their own communities, tooling, and solutions. They are slowly changing the Ethereum codebase from within like cancer. If a map of all of these projects ends up looking like branches on a tree instead of parallel roads, it would be a loss for both the enterprise chains and Ethereum.
This means that most of the onboarding friction is done by the government and enterprise.
One of the many different Permissioned chains is the EU’s EBSI project. It’s a vast, multi-national project looking into using blockchain for eight use-cases, including Self-sovereign identity, business data, and data exchange.
The worst-case would be that EU EBSI converts 300 million citizens to Ethereum users, but the Ethereum version they are introduced to is a Frankenstein version where wallets, tooling, and solutions only work within the EBSI ecosystem.
If that happens, we have lost out on a massive opportunity.
OK, so let’s get this straight — what do I mean with ‘permissioned chains’
Permissioned chains, also known as consortium chains, are nodes running their own networks. Some of these projects use other consensus algorithms like Proof-of-Authority.
What private chains am I referring to when I say they are good for the public Etheruem main chain?
I am referring to:
- 📢 Public permissioned blockchains.
Public means that the data is public, like you would expect from using Etherscan to peek into blocks or the ability to run an archive node, i.e., store all the blockchain data on your computer.
- ⚖️ Permissioned means that the mining is done by selected parties instead of a decentralized consensus algorithm (PoW/PoS). These selected parties can be different government agencies.
Examples of these chains are the xDAI chain (before decentralizing their network with their STAKE token), most enterprise and government chains like EU EBSI.
- 💼 Variants of Ethereum like Hyperledger Besu (the Ethereum codebase in the Apache Hyperledger project)
I am not referring to:
These are rivals of Ethereum, and we should try to outperform them
- 🔒 Private/closed chains as opposed to the public chains mentioned above
- 🤢 Other blockchain technologies than Etheruem like Hyperledger Fabric
- 👺 Networks that are hostile towards Ethereum, i.e., refitting the Ethereum codebase and turning it against the original ecosystem and its values. Binance Smart Chain is an example of this.
Let’s bring Permissioned chains into our ecosystem of ecosystems. They will do a lot of the heavy lifting of onboarding users to Ethereum. Through their services, the users are introduced to:
- dApp UX: How it feels to operate in, e.g., how a Defi dapp is different from a regular banking website
- Wallet and the process of signing transactions
- Holding assets in your possession and using them across services (composability)
This will make the public Ethereum way less scary for new users. In a way, Ethereum main chain is nothing else than flipping a switch in the wallet. And that’s the kicker. Millions and millions of users across Europe will have an Ethereum wallet that can switch over with a click.
This means that most of the onboarding friction is done by the government and enterprise.
