Private Blockchains vs The Bitcoin Blockchain

Lately, there has been a huge spike in interest in private blockchains, particularly from banks and financial institutions. Some of them are already working on their own private blockchains to improve the efficiency of their services. Improving the efficiency of their services is one thing, but to equate the private blockchain to the Bitcoin’s Blockchain is something totally different.

Private blockchains are no different than relational databases, which are centralized. They are like an Intranets to Corporations. While Bitcoin’s Blockchain is like the Internet i.e the World Wide Web.

Private blockchains are centralized. An organization that owns it, can, if they want, alter any transaction at their will. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing it. So, private blockchains shouldn’t be seen as transparent, tamper-proof systems.

On the other hand, Bitcoin’s blockchain – The Blockchain – is unique and different precisely because it’s not centralized. It’s not owned by a particular organization. Decentralized nature of The Blockchain is the main value proposition and its competitive advantage over its counterparts – private blockchains. The Blockchain is analogous to a public ledger that is transparent and tamper-proof, and it contains all the transactions that ever happened on its network. Continue reading