Getting started with blockchain | What kind of chain is called the public chain?
What is the public chain, that is, the public blockchain? What is the difference between a coalition chain and a public chain? What are the necessary features to be called a public chain?
Public Chain and Alliance Chain In 2008, a person or institution called Nakamoto Satoshi invented Bitcoin. In 2009, the Bitcoin network went online. The technology behind Bitcoin is epoch-making, and the technology was later called a blockchain that was not very loud.
Blockchain technology is not born out of thin air, it is based on cryptography. Prior to Bitcoin, many technological breakthroughs in the field of cryptography laid the foundation for the birth of Bitcoin. Public key encryption, workload proof, elliptic curve cryptography, SHA256 hash algorithm were invented very early, and later became the technical components of Bitcoin. People were inspired by Bitcoin and later developed a number of blockchain projects. These projects can be roughly divided into two categories. One is the public chain projects similar to Bitcoin, such as Ethereum and Nervos, and the other is called the alliance chain. The Linux Foundation's Hyperledger project is a well-known representative.
The biggest difference between the alliance chain and the public chain is that the alliance chain is open to entry, and no one can participate if they want to participate. The members of the alliance are all predetermined. So the alliance chain is basically centralized, or at least semi-centralized. For those who believe that decentralization is an indispensable element of the blockchain, the alliance chain cannot be called a blockchain. They will say
There is no blockchain in the world with barriers to entry, because that's just a database of people.
And they also believe
A blockchain that is not motivated is a database.
Usually the alliance chain does not need to be motivated, because members are big organizations that have money and have the motivation to maintain this chain, but the public chain is maintained by countless people who do not know each other, so the public chain must have Native tokens, and use these coins to motivate everyone to participate in the network consensus.
But the alliance chain still has its own use. Large organizations like it because they can use it to build mutual trust between major organizations. On the other hand, although the redundancy of the node makes the public chain very safe, it also makes it very poor performance, and the alliance chain does not have this problem, and the performance is good.
To sum up, the performance of the public chain is low, decentralized, incentives, no entry barriers, and the alliance chain is just the opposite.
The greatest value of the public chain is that it is very expensive to provide trust in the public chain, but it can give more precious things to human beings, that is, trust, the public chain will change the way people communicate with each other.
Trust is a foundation for the world to operate. In ancient times, people mostly lived in small villages. They only need to trust individuals they are familiar with, such as family members or friends. In today's society, the scope of people's collaboration is national or even global. Everyone turns from trusting individuals to trusting organizations such as banks or big companies. But people inspired by the blockchain seem to see another path in the future, that is, we will shift from trusting individuals or organizations to trusting computers and mathematics.
The public chain is born for everyone. It is created by everyone, shared, shared, and used together. The public chain is trustworthy because the security of data is protected by a large number of people who do not know each other.
Andreas, author of the five pillars of "Proficient Bitcoin", proposes a set of criteria for judging whether a chain is a true public chain, called "the five pillars of the public chain": Open, Public, Borderless, Neutral And censorship-resistant .
Open means that anyone can access this chain. Any newcomer who wants to participate in the game does not need to be allowed by others. Participants can even be human, and software is fine. The blockchain doesn't care if the user is a human or a software.
Public means that everything you do can be verified by everyone. Because the system is supervised by everyone, there is no deception. But this does not mean that the participants are free of privacy. The blockchain has its own way to protect the user's identity and data privacy. It does not expand here.
Borderless means no borders. The blockchain is truly international. No matter which country you travel to, the blockchain is in this country. If you have assets in the blockchain, then your assets are already in this country. You don't need to be international. What to carry.
Neutral Neutral means that I have the right to dictate my assets at will. When I initiate a transaction, the blockchain should not interfere with who will receive the money. The money will be used for it, and it should only be responsible for handling the transaction safely.
Censorship-resistant means that if someone wants to limit how I control my assets, it can't be done at all, no matter how strong a person or organization he is. As a result, vulnerable groups and strong people can play games under fair rules. Inserting a personal point of view, the practical significance of Censorship-resistant is mainly to avoid "no one dares to do because of fear of responsibility." Assuming there is no car factory in the world, I want to open the only car factory in the world. At this time, the regulatory authorities will think that after the car appears, every year tens of thousands of people will die in a car accident, then how can I approve to establish such a car? Killing factory? So the car innovation will not happen at all. In fact, a bold innovation can really happen, in fact, because this thing is decentralized, the law does not blame. The Internet and the chain of Censorship-resistant are essentially the same.
We can apply these five criteria to determine whether a chain is a public chain.
Summarizing the public chain is not just a technology, it is also a major social change that can change the economy and finance. I hope that through the explanation of this article, your understanding of the public chain can be clear.
https://www.blockchaindailynews.com/The-difference-between-a-Private-Public-Consortium-Blockchain_a24681.html https://www.mycryptopedia.com/consortium-blockchain-explained/ The Five Pillars of Open Blockchains https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlAhXo-d-64