Participants

A blockchain network is nothing without its participants. A public blockchain can have an infinite number of participants, since anyone can join the network. On the other hand, a blockchain network for business is a collectively-owned, peer-to-peer network operated by a group of identifiable participants. With either network, participants can be individuals or legal entities, such as a business, university, or hospital. The data layer describes the rules for joining the network and the permissions model for accessing and writing the data.

As the blockchain will become more relevant, powerful, and useful in direct proportion to the number of participants, this paradoxically raises one of the biggest concerns, which is the processing power needed to maintain and operate a huge blockchain over time. Solving this challenge is paramount from an architectural perspective and probably key for blockchain applications to become 100% viable in relation to a ton of use cases and eventually positioning themselves as mainstream technology.