Blockchain design – the 5 perspectives to consider.

by Lumai Mubanga

Human ingenuity has taught us that there seems to be no limit to what our innovative minds can fathom. A few years from now, advanced solutions that will emerge, making what we are writing about today, a mere set of historical facts.

There are many types of blockchain designs and each is built on any of the five pillars we will discuss in this article. However, we hasten to state that there could be something already being developed that will surpass current knowledge.

The biggest and most popular blockchain platforms today besides bitcoins include hyper ledger, Ethereum, Ripple, Corda to mention but a few. Each of these is designed with specific goals and audiences in mind. However, they all have underlying technological designs that determine their usefulness, scalability and adaptability in specific business models. The following paragraphs provide an overview of these fundamental perspectives.

Is it generic or Not

The first perspective of blockchain platform design is whether it will support generic applications or not. It simply means that a particular blockchain platform can be designed to support specific applications such as financial transactions or a wide user application base. This perspective can determine how wider or narrower its adoption and can be as well as its target audience.

Is it a public or private blockchain

Blockchain can either be private or public. Public blockchain like bitcoins is open to the public. This means anyone can signup easily, become part of the community, create digital space, trade and conduct all transactions as they wish. They can also leave the platform at any time without anyone bothering or asking why. Although this has its own drawbacks, it has many advantages too. Private blockchain, on the other hand, requires you to be authorized and to a lesser extent, it encompasses some form of centralization. This perspective affects the blockchain’s reach and scale-out efforts.

What consensus model does it support

These are critical technological designs which determine the fundamental functionality of a blockchain. These consensus models also determine a lot more future row out of the blockchain such as fork formations and how consensus will be reached. Different consensus mechanism such as PoW and PoS and many others depend on this design perspective.

Does it use smart contracts or not

Smart contracts are another feature that has added simplicity and dynamism to the overall blockchain design. Believe it or not, this is like an icing layer on a piece of cake, without which, a blockchain may not offer you the best ingredients on the market. This perspective determines a lot about the effectiveness and range of solutions a blockchain can find applications into.

Does it generate cyber token or not

Some blockchain platforms offer cyber tokens while others may just be platforms for developing different applications. This is another important perspective which determines the profitability of the platform as well as types of mining activities.

Future articles, we will discuss how each of the above-mentioned perspectives affects operations of the biggest blockchain platforms.