f you are concerned about the blockchain, you must have heard that the blockchain can be divided into three categories: public chain, alliance chain, and private chain. So what are the differences and characteristics of them?
The essential difference between the public chain, the alliance chain and the private chain is that the access mechanism is different. In other words, the degree of publicity of the blockchain account determines whether it is a public chain, a coalition chain or a private chain. Let's talk about these three types of blockchains.
Public Blockchain
A public chain is a blockchain that anyone can participate in. The public chain is the decentralized blockchain, which is not controlled by the organization, and the entire book is transparent to everyone. Anyone can query transactions, send transactions, and participate in bookkeeping on the public chain. Joining the public chain does not require any authorization, and can join or leave freely, so the public chain is also called the non-licensed chain.
The public chain in which everyone can participate in bookkeeping is booked in a strange and untrusted competitive environment. Therefore, the public chain needs to have a consensus mechanism to select the accounting nodes, which is what we usually say by “digging”. Mine "competition bookkeeping rights. Because of the need to mine, public chain accounting has the characteristics of high delay, high cost and low efficiency.
Most of the blockchain projects we are exposed to are public chains. Well-known public chain projects include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and EOS.
The private
block (Private Blockchain) and the public chain's ledger are the opposite of the public transparency and everyone can be booked. The private chain means that the blockchain accounting authority is only in the hands of one person or an organization, and participation is recorded. The authority of the account is set by the organization, and the read permission can be open to the other party and can be restricted to any degree.
For example, a company's financial budget, the person involved in the bookkeeping may only have the leadership of the financial department and the boss of the company, and the reading authority can be selected according to the needs of the company, and only the company decision-making level or all members know.
Due to the small number of participating billing nodes and the lack of “mining” competition, the private chain has the advantages of fast accounting, no billing cost and high privacy. Since the private chain is an internal node, the accounting environment is credible; blockchain technology can prevent a single node from tampering with data, even if an error occurs, it can be quickly discovered.
The private chain applies to companies or organizations, and many large financial institutions tend to use private chains. The disclosure of the books of the
Consortium Blockchain
is between the public and private chains. The alliance chain refers to the blockchain that is managed and maintained by multiple organizations. The nodes participating in the blockchain are selected in advance. The alliance chain only opens all or part of the functions of the members of the alliance. The reading, writing and accounting rules of the information on the chain are set according to the consensus of the alliance.
For example, there are 100 universities that have established a blockchain. The consensus stipulates that there must be 67 colleges and universities to agree. As with the private chain, node joins require a license, so both the federation chain and the private chain are called license chains.
Because of the good connection between the nodes and the trusted network environment, the alliance chain has the characteristics of high accounting efficiency, short consensus time, low accounting cost and privacy.
The alliance chain is mainly applicable to the trade associations of large-scale chain enterprises to subordinate units and in charge control institutions. For example, the R3 Blockchain Alliance, established in 2015, is a banking alliance chain that has attracted more than 40 giant banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, New York Mellon Bank, and Citibank.
Conclusion
We conclude that the
public chain is a blockchain that anyone can participate in reading, trading, and writing. It is completely decentralized, and the book information is open and transparent, and is not controlled by any organization. Public chains generally need to mine to reach a consensus, which brings disadvantages such as high transaction delay, high cost and low efficiency. Typical representatives of public chains are Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, etc.
A private chain is a blockchain project in which the billing rights are controlled by a single individual or institution. Its characteristics include accounting centering, high efficiency, no billing cost, and excellent privacy. The usage scenario is an internal audit.
The alliance chain refers to the blockchain that the participating nodes determine in advance, and only opens all or part of the functions of the members of the alliance. Its characteristics are between the public chain and the private chain. The book is semi-public, the transaction confirmation speed is fast, the accounting cost is low, and the data has certain privacy. Its typical representative is a banking alliance chain called R3.