When Bitcoin was released, it brought about blockchain technology. Innovators now know its positive effects and are exploring its uses in their industries. There are three types of blockchains; private, public, and consortium.
Private Blockchains
Private blockchains are permissioned environments, they have rules that dictate people are allowed to write and see to the chain. These systems are not decentralised because the control system is a clear hierarchy. Although, they are dispersed, meaning several nodes still keep a duplicate of the chain in their machines.
Private chains are very useful for enterprise settings, especially where a corporation wants to benefit from blockchain applications without exposing their network to external accessibility.
Although Proof-of-work is wasteful, open environments need it, given the security model. However, in private blockchains that are permissioned environments, Proof of Work's threats that it deters are not very harmful as governance is on-hand and the identity of each participant is known.
The appropriate algorithm for this type of blockchain is nodes; they have appointed validators. They are chosen for some functions for the validation of transactions. This needs nodes that have to sign off on every block. Nodes that start to act suspiciously are identified and removed from the network. Besides, it is easy to control a reversal in private chains because of its hierarchy control system.
Public Blockchains
Unlike the previously discussed private chains, public blockchains are permissionless environments, in that they allow anyone to view transactions that happen and become part of the chain as it is simple to download the needed software.
No gatekeeper or rules stand between people getting into public chains or viewing transactions that happen there. Public blockchains are decentralised as it's free for anyone to become part of it and get rewarded for their role of achieving consensus.
Chances are that anyone who has recently used cryptocurrency, has interacted with a public blockchain. These make up many distributed ledgers existing today.
Since public blockchains allow anyone to join the chain, they are more censorship-resistant compared to private blockchains. They need to put in place some mechanisms that stop suspicious users from secretly gaining an advantage.
However, the public blockchain's security -oriented approach has some disadvantages on the performance front, for example, many people come across scaling obstacles and is generally weak.
Additionally, for this type of chain, it is hard to push for changes since not all users will accept the proposed changes.
Consortium Blockchains
This chain combines elements from both public and private blockchains, it is between the two. It is suitable in an environment where many organizations work in the same industry.
Instead of an only permissioned environment and an only permissionless environment, consortium blockchain ensures certain equally powerful groups work as validators.
As a result, the system's rules are flexible, in that, only the chain's visibility can be restricted to the validators, only visible to authorized people or by everyone.
Unlike public chains, changes in this type of chain can be made easily as long as the validators agree on it. If the validators are honest in their operations within the chain, then it will be hard for the system to encounter any issues.
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