Research explores the compatibility of public and private chains

While distributed ledger technology (blockchain) continues to gain recognition from financial institutions around the world, the potential and feasibility of Bitcoin, its founding application, has largely been rejected by the same parties.

Enthusiastic Bitcoin supporters believe that the use of private私链will inevitably lead to the centralization of the system, which is a far cry from Bitcoin's distributed, trustless protocol.

However, the latest white paper released by Bitcoin mining company BitFury does not think so (co-authored by Bitcoin core developer Jeff Garzik ). The white paper mentions that public and private chains are compatible and interconnected, and many private chain applications can be built on public chains through existing technologies. (The terms permissioned and permissionless are used in the paper, which are the same as the concepts of private and public chains)

For example, coloured coins coins, a layered technology built on the Bitcoin blockchain, aims to ease the burden of asset transfers. For financial institutions, it means that they can also enjoy the advantages that public chains can bring.

The white paper adds:

"Similar protocols could enable timestamping of files, aiding the development of distributed timestamping registries."

“Payment channel networks, such as the Lightning Network, can create a scalable peer-to-peer layer on top of public blockchains to streamline payments,” it continued, “and sidechain technology can bring public and private blockchains together into an interconnected environment.”

Permission vs permissionless

Although the white paper mentions that private chains can play a key role in blockchain innovation in the short term, the security of public chains is unmatched by private chains.

In this regard, the White Paper points out:

“The public chain can minimize human factors. It emphasizes the security of the algorithm and the consistency of data, which is the core of blockchain technology. Therefore, the public chain can reasonably become the basic layer of the blockchain infrastructure, and private chain applications can be built on the public chain.”

(Translator's note: The full white paper is being translated and is expected to be released next week)

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Original article: http://www.coindesk.com/research-examines-compatibility-of-public-and-private-blockchains/
By Nikhil Gupta
Compiled by: Satuoxi
Editor: Satuoxi
Source (translation): Babbitt Information