Public versus Private Blockchains – Part 1: Permissioned Blockchains

Blockchain-based solutions are one of the major areas of research for institutions,particularly in the financial and the government sectors. There is little disagreement that backbone technologies currently used in these sectors are outdated and need an overhaul to conform to the needs of the times. Distributed or decentralized ledgers in the form of blockchains are one of the most discussed potential solutions to the stated problem. We provide a description of permissioned blockchain systems that could be used in creating secure ledgers or timestamped registries. We contend that the blockchain protocol and data should be accessible to end users to provide a higher level of decentralization and transparency and argue that proof of work could be effectively used in permissioned blockchains as a means of providing and diversifying security.