Public versus private versus permissioned blockchains

Public blockchains were designed and developed with a focus on ensuring that any number of interested parties can execute the business logic and access transactional information. Similarly, any interested party can also verify and validate the transactions incoming to the network, as well as be rewarded for the process.

Private blockchains are implemented to ensure that access to business information is limited and only accessible to a limited set of participating stakeholders.

Permissioned blockchains are a hybrid implementation of what both public and private blockchains have to offer. Permissioned blockchains are implemented if data is to be accessed by a specific stakeholder. This is achieved by leveraging private networking, as well as the encryption of transactional user data, which is also stored in blocks that may consist of transactions relating to other stakeholders in the consortium.

Comparing usage scenarios

The following table shows how the three types of blockchain can be used in various scenarios. They are:

In the next section, we will further understand the privacy options in blockchains.