Permissioned chains will move over to the Ethereum main chain
I have three arguments why we will see most solutions on permissioned chains move to the Ethereum main chain.
1. GDPR
When you process and store data, you are liable to a whole lot of regulations. If, on the other hand, you as a government agency only have deployed a couple of smart contracts to a public chain, you a liable to fewer laws. There is still regulation on some parts of the data, but a lot less because you are under the statute of “Processing manager” and not “data processor.”
Hence, using the Ethereum main chain reduces the risk of using blockchain.
2. Enterprises and governments usually outsource when they can
The public sector in most nations is dictated to use the market where it can be used. Enterprises often do the same. An example of this is how everyone is moving to cloud services instead of having servers on-premise.
There is a fully functional Ethereum network being run by the market. The miners (and in the future stakers) are the market running a blockchain network. The government can’t run an Ethereum network with the same amount of decentralization and security without paying a lot more than what it would cost to cover users’ transaction fees.
Governments will probably move towards the cheapest and most secure option.
3. History is repeating itself
While governments and enterprises saw the Internet opportunities in the 90s, they were afraid to take it into use. The openness was scary due to regulation and securing business secrets, and some things they wanted to do, was straight-up illegal on the Internet (which some laws changed after some time).
Instead, Intranets were all the pop when the web was invented.
After the Intranets had shown their value and the Intranets started to get connected (interoperability), it became less and less reason to have an entire IT department run ‘your own Internet.’ There was already a fully functioning Internet out there, freely available where all the other parties were already connected. And the rest is history.
I believe we will see the same happen with Ethereum permissioned chains, as with what happened with intranets in the 90s.
There’s reason to believe that once
- ETH2.0 is released,
- there is a recognized pattern for paying for user fees, and
- we reach widespread use of Layer 2
that Ethereum isn’t scary any longer, and using it is the easy and obvious choice.
