The DAPP Network Unlocks New Value Chains for Enterprise
The Perfect Fit for Enterprise: LiquidChains Solutions Combine the Auditability of Public Blockchains With the Reliability and Privacy of Permissioned Networks
- Businesses exploring blockchain face the difficult decision of whether to use a public ledger, a custom permissioned ledger, or a private ledger. This decision affects functionality, performance, compliance, auditability, and compatibility with other systems.
- LiquidChains is a blockchain-as-a-service solution that allows anyone to spin up a customizable chain in minutes, connect it to a public blockchain ledger for transparent record-keeping (if they so choose) and harness the suite of DAPP Network services to scale their applications even further.
- By empowering builders with the best of both public and private chains, LiquidChains could represent an upgrade to existing solutions that is horizontally scalable — finally offering a secure, functional sharding solution that opens new possibilities for organizations both big and small.
Initially confined to the fringe corners of the internet dominated by cypherpunks, blockchain technology has received increasing attention from enterprises both big and small looking to leverage its efficiencies to improve their processes. Distributed ledgers have since been utilized by IBM to track diamonds, by JPMorgan to settle cross-border transactions, and BanQu has even used it to track the raw materials of beer from crop to cup as a host of well-regarded brands continue to explore this new frontier.
Getting enterprise applications to scale is a challenging process that involves a number of key design decisions. As the World Economic Forum put it in a recent paper, for enterprises exploring a blockchain-based solution, “one of the most fraught considerations typically is whether to use a public or private ledger and what permission models. This decision affects functionality, security, compatibility with other stakeholders’ systems and, perhaps most important, competitive positioning for companies.”
Indeed, selecting between the various infrastructure options can create an unwelcome headache for the most capable of CIOs. Compounding this difficulty is the fact that once a base chain has been selected, it can be rather difficult to migrate to a different option should the need arise.
- Public, permissionless blockchains offer maximum auditability and established infrastructure, but no control and no privacy.
- Public, permissioned blockchains offer auditability and control, but additional infrastructure costs — and no privacy.
- Private, permissioned blockchains offer privacy and control, but additional infrastructure costs — and, of course, no auditability.
Public blockchains that house a multitude of applications are limited in the amount of storage space, computing power and other network resources that they offer, leading to cases of network congestion and poor service delivery. Furthermore, these networks are essential public ledgers where the data is present for all to see, making them less than ideal for organizations that demand privacy, permissioning, and high performance.
Meanwhile, private chains that are built specifically for a single enterprise or a consortium of companies lack the interoperability of decentralized applications (dApps) on public networks, even though they offer more efficiency and, if desired, more privacy. Instead of simply plugging into the blockchain and interacting with other dApps, applications on private chains require various parties coming together to create shared standards from scratch.
Furthermore, if enterprises exclusively use a private permissioned blockchain, they forgo the auditability of public options.
LiquidChains offer a novel approach for enterprises and dApps looking to bridge public, permissioned, and private blockchains when deploying mission-critical blockchain applications. This technology could allow anyone to spin up a customizable chain in minutes and connect it to a public ledger for transparent record-keeping, if they wish.
LiquidChains can be public or private, permissioned or permissionless. They can exist for as short or long a time as necessary. And they can include whichever trustless features best suit their creators’ use case.
Should their initial configuration not perform as expected, enterprises could seamlessly switch up their base layer by using the DAPP Network to migrate all their data across chains.
By harnessing LiquidChains together with LiquidX and the powerful services already in action on the DAPP Network, enterprise customers could build on the blockchain with the performance, permissioning, and privacy they need to succeed (Click to Tweet)
Case Study: Do You Want to Build A Supply Chain?
To illustrate the design choices facing enterprise customers, let’s follow the fictional story of Tara as she explores different ways to implement blockchain technology within her business.
Tara operates a pharmaceutical manufacturer, Tara Pharma. She wishes to utilize the blockchain both to manage her inventory and logistics as well as to trace the origins of the raw materials from which the medicines are made. Priding herself on her due diligence, Tara takes her time investigating the various options at her disposal.
She begins by exploring public blockchains — and quickly concludes that they do not suit her needs. First, her trading partners include a number of large, traditional companies that won’t be comfortable moving to a public chain validated by unfamiliar entities and co-inhabited, in the present and the future, by an undocumented and unregulated list of companies and organizations. Furthermore, public blockchains tend to get congested when demand for resources is high, which may lead to crucial transactions not going through in time.
Private blockchain solutions, such as R3’s Corda or IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric, could provide Tara with the reliability and control she desires. These permissioned chains do not need to have every transaction broadcasted across or validated by a large, distributed network, making them quicker and, if desired, more private than public blockchains. Only approved partners will be allowed to run a node and view transactions on Tara’s private chain.
However — while they present a significant upgrade to her earlier paper-based systems — these permissioned blockchains are devoid of the decentralization benefits that blockchains have over traditional databases. Tara’s customers would potentially have no way of independently verifying the integrity of their medicines, and her suppliers would not be able to independently track the destination of their raw materials.
Furthermore, Tara would have to agree on a common set of standards with each one of her trading partners in order to ensure interoperability between her systems and theirs. If she wants to leverage the systems of the pharmacies she supplies, as well as the suppliers she sources her raw materials from, they would all need to embark on a lengthy process of standardizing the way data is stored, updated, and transferred.
Tara is encountering the common question facing all enterprise blockchain users: Should we use a bespoke private ledger, a public permissioned ledger, or an existing permissionless public ledger?
With LiquidApps’ LiquidChains, Tara could harness the advantages of all of these categories. LiquidChains can overcome both the private vs. public dilemma and the permissioned vs. permissionless dilemma.
There are many potential configurations, as LiquidChains could be set up to meet any specific demand.
One setup would allow Tara to run her application on a purpose-built private chain — and link it to a public ledger, or to her own publicly auditable ledger. This way, she could take advantage of privacy for certain data points, and also capitalize on the speed of permissioned blockchains to move medicine along her supply chain quickly and efficiently. At the same time, she could interoperate with her suppliers’ systems and keep a record of her medicines by linking her chain to a public ledger and using that link to automatically post data appropriate for public consumption. With additional configuration, this data could potentially be provably legitimate, for auditability purposes — even though critical private components are kept away from public access.
Enterprise Rising
The early adopters of blockchain, led by the anonymous creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto, were driven by anarchism and the desire to dismantle the existing power structures designed by governments and big banks. Yet, in an ironic twist of fate, these same institutions are in the midst of repurposing the technology to meet their own needs.
Just a few years after C-suite executives dismissed the technology as a fad, the adoption of blockchain across enterprise continues to grow. A Deloitte survey shows that 53% of corporate respondents cited blockchain as a top-five strategic priority, compared to a mere 6% that are unsure or do not see the need to use blockchain. Yet decision makers are hesitant to shift gears and move large-scale blockchain applications into production, partly due to the inherent limitations of both private and public networks.
With LiquidChains, enterprises could enjoy the best of both worlds — the confidentiality of private blockchains, the reliability of permissioned public blockchains, and the advantages of being able to transfer data and value to and from public chains — all while harnessing the powerful services already in action on the DAPP Network.
Know a business that can finally get off the fence and join the blockchain revolution with LiquidChains? Click to tweet the following message, and don’t forget to tag them!
No longer do businesses have to choose between the advantages of private, public permissioned, and permissionless blockchains.
Create customizable chains with LiquidChains and enjoy the best of all 3 worlds. #DAPPNetwork @LiquidAppsIO (Click to Tweet)
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