In this second part about blockchain platforms, we are going to talk about their suitability for different application areas. We then compare two of the most popular blockchain platforms: Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric are part of the second generation blockchains, which means they offer the possibility of using smart contracts. Ethereum is one of the most popular platforms used for any type of blockchain application. Since it is a public and permissionless blockchain, it is especially suitable for applications aimed at a broad range of people who want to connect for temporary collaborations. For example, the slock.it use case and the Blockchan for Education use case are using the Ethereum blockchain. Hyperledger Fabric on the other hand is more enterprise-oriented. Its private and permissioned infrastructure enables the protection of sensitive and competitive information. Furthermore, as a modular platform, it enables the enterprise to customize the blockchain application exactly to its needs. For example, several food chain applications have been developed using Hyperledger Fabric to enhance the traceability of food. R3 Corda is another versatile platform, although it was initially developed for the financial services industry. A proof of concept using R3 Corda was developed to make bank reconciliation, meaning the time and cost-intensive, manual work to reconcile bank ledgers, easier and faster. Concerning IOTA, this advancement of blockchain technology specializes on machine-to-machine communication and is therefore perfect for applications involving the Internet of Things. As an example, machine-to-machine energy trading can be used to realize smart charging for e-mobility. And finally, Hashgraph is a considerably faster and more efficient platform than Blockchain, which makes it especially suitable for use cases like the free and fair voting initiative. There are several evaluation criteria to help decide which technology to use for which use case. First of all, access restrictions. There are public and private, permissioned and permissionless blockchains. Depending on the use case, it could be better if everyone can join the platform and access transactions, or it could be necessary to keep the information on the blockchain more private. Secondly, scalability. For some use cases, it might be necessary to produce large amounts of transactions very fast (for example when processing credit card transactions) or it could be enough if a transaction takes a few minutes to be stored on the blockchain. Thirdly, the architecture. A blockchain’s architecture might have specific attributes, like legal prose in smart contracts like in R3 Corda, or the modularity that you can find in Hyperledger Fabric. And lastly, different platforms use different consensus mechanisms, which might impact the speed of the transaction processing and the computational resources needed by network participants. Now we are going to apply those criteria to compare Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. As we already specified in part 1 of this topic, Ethereum is a public, permissionless blockchain, while Hyperledger Fabric is private and permissioned. Furthermore, Ethereum is with 15 transactions/second considerably slower than Hyperledger Fabric with 3500 transactions/second. Both blockchains are generic, so they can be applied to any type of use case, however, Hyperledger Fabric is modular, meaning that for example the membership management system and the consensus mechanism are customizable. Ethereum, on the other hand uses a fixed consensus mechanism, namely proof of work. In summary, blockchain infrastructures can be generic or developed specifically to fit a certain application area or industry. Blockchain alternatives like Hashgraph often promise to be better than blockchain technologies in their speed, security and efficiency. And lastly, there are several attributes which should be considered when choosing an infrastructure: Access restrictions, scalability, architecture and the consensus mechanism inherent to the technology.
