The Practicality of Lamden: A Response to Enterprise Blockchain Limitations
About two weeks ago, Michael del Castillo wrote this article on Coindesk about current limitations that prevent businesses from adopting blockchain. The argument consisted of a several-layered problem, summarizing the general takeaway at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation’s annual fintech symposium in New York City. Castillo writes about three underlying problems: the limits of open source, the need for intentional guardrails, and the uncertainty of regulations. For those that do not know, Lamden is developing a suite of enterprise tools that will allow for enterprise-grade blockchains to be easily deployed and managed. Let us break down Castillo’s points and how the Lamden suite directly addresses these major problems.
The Limits of Open-Source
Castillo cites the concerns of DTCC’s chief technology architect, Rob Palatnick, regarding the use of open-sourced blockchains for business enterprise purposes. The idea of a network of blockchains is mentioned along with a mention of neutral parties who are trusted with ledgers. The ideas discussed come very close to imagining an ecosystem of private chains that are distributed among a private network that meets the level of trust needed for enterprise usage.
This idea speaks to the purpose of implementing private chains as deployed by Saffron, Lamden’s blockchain creation tool. These blockchains can be as permissioned and as private as the network managers desire. On top of this, the idea of a “network of networks,” as explicitly mentioned at the DTCC’s meeting, is exactly in line with the goal of Clove, Lamden’s atomic swap protocol. Clove will allow for the exchange of assets between private chains seamlessly in a trustless manner. Enterprises can benefit from the open-source ideals behind blockchain without having to subject their sensitive data to the public.
Intentional Guardrails
The problems caused by an unpermissioned and turing complete language such as Solidity, the primary smart-contracting language of Ethereum, means that there is a lot of risk to businesses and their blockchains if they code in the same language. The DAO hack, which we’ve also expressed our concern about here, was brought up in the DTCC symposium and the sentiments echoed again match exactly that of Lamden’s: the need for a permissioned smart-contracting language to disallow for malicious code to enter into the network or the dApp or the blockchain.
Lamden has a two-fold solution to this security flaw. First is our soon-to-be-completed permissioned and turing incomplete language, Seneca. The simplicity of Seneca greatly reduces the possibility of attack vectors when compared to other smart-contracting languages. Furthermore, Lamden is committed to make blockchain usage as simplified as possible for enterprise adoption. The second part of the Lamden solution offers Seneca within a smart contract manager, Flora, that will facilitate the use of Seneca and allow for developers to easily code standardized and safe smart contracts for their businesses.
Regulations Still Uncertain
The final section of the article refers to the SEC's delivering of subpoenas to blockchain ventures that sought to fund their operations through initial coin offerings.The highlight here is the concern of public blockchains, and the array of legal and technical issues that come with them. The more businesses need to rely on public chains, the less control they have over critical issues such as security, speed, and governance. No enterprise would like such critical factors to be out of their hands if they can avoid it.
The beauty of the Lamden suite is that gives the user a variety of options between public and private chains, as well as hybrid options in between. If they wish, a business can fully remove the need to trust or even deal with any external or public blockchain. Lamden believes that as revolutionary as public blockchains have been, there is also undeniably a place in the market for private chains. These chains provide value in more specific and private operations, where the usage of a public chain would not be appropriate. The legal risks associated with public chains relate to the specific compliances of these public chains and their creators to regulatory bodies. This may have little to do with the needs of a business wanting to use them. Private chains will be more controlled in their usage and likely escape the scope of many regulatory concerns. If any remain, the business now owns the chains they are using, leaving compliance within their control.
A Different Takeaway
As for the takeaway from the DTCC symposium, Castillo opens his article with it: “Blockchains are here to stay, but so too are centralized authorities.” The Lamden suite provides a simple solution which shows that blockchain and centralization are not opposite ends of a spectrum, but two forces that can be a perfect match when the right tools are provided.
You can read the original article covering the DTCC's symposium on blockchain enterprise problems here. You can also read my argument for why businesses need blockchains here, and specifically their need for developer tools here.
