What Are Types of Blockchain?

In order to properly describe a blockchain solution, additional terms must be entered into the conversation. A blockchain solution is often measured and described against the subsequent three metrics:

• Public vs. Private
o Who can write data to the blockchain? Public blockchains leave large audiences or the general public itself to feature data in the ledger. Bitcoin may be a great example of a public blockchain network – there are not any rules or permissions around who can trade Bitcoin. Anyone can purchase, sell, or send Bitcoin to anyone else. A blockchain solution wont to track how charitable donations are employed by a non-profit would be an excellent example of a personal solution. In such an answer, only designated officers of the non-profit organization should be allowed to share metrics detailing how donations are allocated and spent.

• Open vs. Closed
o Who can read data from the blockchain? Open blockchains allow large audiences or the general public itself to consume all the ledger data. Closed blockchains plan to restrict read access. once more, Bitcoin may be a great example of an Open platform; anyone within the world can use a blockchain explorer to look at the small print of any Bitcoin transaction, whether or not they were a participant or not. An example of a closed blockchain solution could be a platform for managing elections. In such an answer it might be important that only election officials have access to election results and therefore the individual votes cast by each voter – such information might not be well-suited for public consumption.

• Permissoned vs. Permissionless
o Platforms or solutions which are open and public have no use for permissioning or role-based access. Such platforms are described as permissionless platforms because they are doing not have a native ability to trace and manage identity and subsequently define and enforce permissions supported that identity. This doesn’t mean that we cannot build a permissioned solution on a permissionless platform, it simply means if we select to try to do so we‘re liable for designing and implementing a way to trace and manage identity and draw permissions against that identity. When designing an answer, an excellent thanks to determining what sort of blockchain is required is to work out if all participants are considered equal or should some have abilities or permissions that others do not? Answering this may help guide the answer to using permissioned or permissionless blockchain technology.
It can sometimes be helpful to possess a visible model when planning your blockchain solution. be happy to use a quadrant like the one below when mapping out an answer. For any envisioned use case, where does it fit on the model below? In other words, which combination best describes our required solution?

Public / Open
o Anyone can write data, anyone can read data

Public / Closed
o Anyone can write data, only a couple of can read data

Private / Open
o Only a couple of can write data, many can read data

Private / Closed
o Only a couple of can write data, only a couple of can read data