So why blockchain? And Why now? What makes this technology so special that is attracted massive investment and forced the likes of supply chains, trade logistics, and the finance industry to rethink their business models under the guise of disruption?
The answer likely lies in the Bitcoin blockchain system, which possibly is the only initial functional evidence of a peer-to-peer permissionless network. Although the Bitcoin blockchain system cannot be directly adopted into a enterprise model, much can be learned from it and then applied to a successful blockchain for enterprise.
Bitcoin has gained notoriety for being a radical and unregulated rogue (cyber) currency —a reputation that has prompted some regulated entities to distance themselves from the concept. However, many businesses see the virtues of using blockchain as a technology alternative that is permissioned and conforms to all regulatory alternative that is envolved over time. Such an approache holds promise as a means to solve long-standong industry concerns, such as modernizing the financial and trade system and spending up securities and trade settlement. The goal is meaningful application of technology to move goods and money seamlessly with full systemic transparency, trust, and accountability of participants, all without an intermediaty, at a faster pace and a much lower cost.
Although the blockchain industry sees a clear separation between the enterprise world and the cypto world, we see a disconnect in understanding the technology trust system that makes a blockchain so attractive. The tenets of Botcoin are driven by economic incentive (a rewards system for unkeep, longetivity, high availability, and system maintenance), cripotography (to ensure order in a chaotic and permissionless world), and specialized computational power (massive clisters and hardware that are dedicated to solutions for bitcoins). Bitcoins signifythat a trust currency can be either earned or bought, essencially representing the value of the invested economic resources (people, power, and time). When we apply these tenets to a permisioned ledger and network, the radicalized trust currency must be morphed into a viable trust system that you can choose to ignore or adopt as a foundation for incentive economics that are based on the trust system or consensus models.
Many consensus models, such as Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) or Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerant (pBFT), RAFT, and Paxos, can address all use cases. An enterprise must understand them and drive investment into the underlying resources —that is, talent, energy and time.
Resource considerations are important for any enterprise venturing into the realm of blockchain. This is another principle from the Bitcoin blockchain world, which is now dominated by specialized hardware, which in turn adds to the growing resource requierements. A data structure (a shared ledger), cryptography, encryption, and high I/O (input/output) (due collectivelty place extraordinary demands on underlying resources.
