Welcome crypto dummiez and happy holidays!
If you’re new here, the goal of this substack is to educate those that know nothing about crypto and blockchain technology. If that’s you, then you’ve come to the right place!
We’ve discussed many different topics here related to blockchain technology and today we’re going to dive in on permissioned blockchains and Hyperledger Fabric by IBM.
With that being said, let’s get started.
So, what are permissioned blockchains?
A permissioned blockchain is quite literally exactly what it sounds like. These are known as private blockchains that require access to be a part of the network. In this blockchain type, a control layer runs on top of the blockchain and governs the actions performed by the allowed participants.
How does Hyperledger Fabric fit into this?
Hyperledger Fabric was first introduced in 2015 to promote cross-industry collaborations. The goal was to bring together stakeholders, developers, and technology providers with an ecosystem that supports:
Blockchain Protocol
A distributed ledger
Smart Contracts
Frameworks and tools for developers, businesses, and other stakeholders
Common functional modules + defined interfaces
Re-use of common building blocks
A diverse developer community
Rapid experimentation
Extensible codebases
Flexible modification of any component
Hyperledger Frameworks and Tools
Framework:
Fabric - Hyperledger Fabric by IBM
A permissioned blockchain infrastructure with a modular architecture that outlines the separation of roles between nodes in the infrastructure, execution of smart contracts, consensus, and membership services.
Sawtooth - Hyperledger Sawtooth
Enterprise blockchain platform specifically designed to develop distributed ledger networks and applications. Sawtooth supports Ethereum Contract Compatibility through Seth (Sawtooth-Ethereum integration project).
Indy - Hyperledger Indy
A distributed ledger that was designed with a decentralized identity in mind. Provides a secure and robust ecosystem made for private digital identities. Indy also includes a range of libraries and tools that allow you to create digital identities on the blockchain.
Burrow - Hyperledger Burrow hosted by The Linux Foundation
Burrow allows a blockchain client to develop a permitted smart contract machine with the same specifications as EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine)
Tools:
Cello - Hyperledger Cello
Cello is a modular toolkit that can be described as an on-demand “as-a-service” deployment model.
Quilt - Hyperledger Quilt
A business blockchain tool and payments protocol is used for moving value across both distributed and non-distributed ledgers by implementing the Interledger Protocol.
Composer - Hyperledger Composer
Development framework and toolkit, designed to make the development of blockchain applications and smart contracts more seamless and convenient. Composer can be used to develop and deploy blockchain applications rapidly.
Explorer - Hyperledger explorer
Explicitly designed for developing user-driven web applications.
There is no native cryptocurrency associated with Hyperledger, since it was designed to bring together stakeholders, developers, and technology providers all that exists on the blockchain is business logic.
Chaincode on Hyperledger Fabric is the equivalent to smart contract code written in Solidity on Ethereum. Fabric was built as a business-to-business and business-to-client blockchain vs. the traditional peer-to-peer system on a decentralized blockchain, this means only designated validating peers can mine. Whereas on a decentralized blockchain any peer nodes can participate, and the design places a heavy emphasis on modularity and configurability.
Hyperledger Fabric also introduces a consensus model that we have not yet covered, known as Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (or PBFT).
Byzantine Fault Tolerance is known as the ability of a distributed network to correctly reach a sufficient consensus, despite malicious nodes in the network failing, or sending out incorrect information. This ensures that the network will continue to run properly as long as 2 thirds of the network agree or reach a consensus. This was first introduced by Barbara Liskov and Miguel Castro in 1999. Implementation means copying servers and synchronizing client interactions with server copies, establishing a network’s fault tolerance while still allowing it to process thousands of operations per second.
Wrapping it all up:
Today we discussed a new type of blockchain, permissioned blockchains, and explored a perfect example of this with Hyperledger Fabric by IBM. Hyperledger introduces a business-to-business and business-to-client model that differs from the trustless peer-to-peer systems we have discussed in previous posts.
Permissioned blockchains are closed ecosystems that require access to be a part of. Next week we will continue to dive into Hyperledger Fabric and explore in a little more detail how the blockchain and its services work.
Hope to see all you crypto dummies next week!