
Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain? - thisisit
We have seen a lot of focus given to bitcoin&#x27;s PoW and the electricity usage. This got me thinking how the enterprise offerings like Quorum, Hyperledger work exactly? Are they like a PoS model?<p>Edit: Based on the inputs, I wanted to add couple more questions.<p>If the consensus is based on a set of trusted accounts, why are people using the enterprise blockchain stuff still talk about blockchain being &quot;trustless&quot;?<p>Second, if it is only about a set of shared ledger with multiple trusted parties, what is wrong with an API layer integration? What exactly is the value creation for a full fledged system?<p>Third, bitcoin blockchain defends against a miner getting hacked by making everyone do PoS. Sure coins will get stolen.<p>But, if we have a permission-ed server which can add stuff to an enterprise blockchain doesn&#x27;t it make the whole thing a lot less secure?
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brudgers
As your edit notes, trust solves a lot of the technical hurdles that Bitcoin
and Etherium and other protocols intended for use against adversaries must
leap.

Many of the proposed and actual uses of blockchain are layered on top of
existing trust networks. For example inter-connected electrical grids operated
by separate companies already trust each other and already have working
settlement mechanisms. Potentially a blockchain can improve/simplify/quicken
an existing flow of settlements between trusted parties by eliminating
phonecalls, faxes, snail mailed bank drafts, and so on. It may reduce manual
processing and human error and banks in the middle.

As a technology, blockchain may be more like double entry accounting or an
abacus than the many other things that the word "technology" tends to conjure
up in our minds.

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viraptor
> Second, if it is only about a set of shared ledger with multiple trusted
> parties, what is wrong with an API layer integration? What exactly is the
> value creation for a full fledged system?

> But, if we have a permission-ed server which can add stuff to an enterprise
> blockchain doesn't it make the whole thing a lot less secure?

You're asking the right questions and this is pretty much a summary why the
enterprise use is unlikely to use blockchain the same way as the public, if at
all. Enterprise/banking may be interested in a distributed ledger as a
datastructure, but other tech which provides a similar results already exists.

Unfortunately if you look at most of the "big (company/bank) starts
(experimenting with/using) (Bitcoin/blockchain)" news, they very rarely say
why and how.

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nnn1234
The goal would be to enable co opetition. Think of patent pools, the incentive
usually is to own the patent and enforce it, inside of patent pools however ,
the goal is to get to application. So a collection of non trusting entities
can have a shared ledger of record.

That most certainly is the pull, which Enterprise blockchain cos sell as
simplified back office.

Will it work like that in production ? No clue

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YuriNiyazov
When the Bitcoin paper originally came out, it used the word 'blockchain' to
specifically mean a 'trustless distributed blockchain' where consensus is
reached via mining, and that is susceptible to a 50% + 1 attack, and where the
mining nodes are individual businesses that have no reason to trust each other
except that the game is set up in a way that it is in their self-interest to
secure the blockchain.

However, there's a use for the word 'blockchain' which is 'distributed
blockchain', which is a data structure that is a chain of blocks where each
includes a hash of the previous one - it's distributed amongst machines, but
those fundamentally trust each other (like in case of JPMorgan chain), so
there's no reason to use a 'trustless distributed blockchain'. You can't set
up a miner and join Quorum and make money securing it. In such a case, quorum
is probably solved just using standard distributed database algorithms like
Paxos or Raft.

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russdpale
Huh? Bitcoin white paper does not have the word block-chain in it.

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prepend
Yet it describes the blockchain. It talks about blocks, it refers to them in a
chain. While true that the word block-chain doesn’t exist, it isn’t relevant
to OP’s point (since the paper clearly defines the blockchain concept now used
so prevelantly).

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heckerhut
It’s based on a quorum of white-listed accounts that are allowed to sign
blocks.

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narak
Worth watching this talk on Ripple's consensus algorithm by its architect:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7abKUs9tYZg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7abKUs9tYZg)
and related whitepaper:
[https://ripple.com/files/ripple_consensus_whitepaper.pdf](https://ripple.com/files/ripple_consensus_whitepaper.pdf)

I have no affiliation with Ripple or XRP, just enjoyed the fairly technical
nature of the talk.

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dozzie
> How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

It doesn't, because blockchain doesn't solve consensus problem.

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econner
What's the point of using a blockchain then?

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prepend
There’s tons of answers to this, but one example I’m interested in is as a
good shared, accessible audit log for data throughout an organization. Just
having a stable history for all data helps with investigation and master data
management.

In this case consensus isn’t really necessary because all participants are
trusted and should rarely differ (since they all have the same boss at some
level).

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russdpale
I agree. But working at a huge company I can honestly say they don't really
want an immutable ledger. They want to fudge and change things.

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slake
Typically a ledger should be immutable. That's what retains its auditability.
Any fudging/changing should be done through reverse entries that explain why
the reversal occurs.

