Back to: Blockchain Basics
Not everything called a “blockchain” is one in the meaningful sense. The dividing lines are who can read, who can write, and who decides the rules — and most enterprise “blockchains” fail the test that matters.
The three kinds
| Public | Private | Permissioned/consortium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read | Anyone | Approved eyes | Members |
| Write/validate | Anyone (with stake/work) | One company | Vetted set |
| Examples | Bitcoin, Ethereum | Internal ledgers | Hyperledger, bank chains |
| Censorship-resistant? | Yes (if decentralized) | No | Barely |
The honest question
A private chain run by one company is a slow database with cryptographic auditing — useful, but it inherits exactly one party’s trustworthiness. If a single admin can rewrite history, freeze accounts, and change rules, no hash chain changes the power structure. W3D only scores public networks, for this reason.
"Enterprise blockchain" decoder
– “Private blockchain for supply chain” → shared database with receipts. Fine, but not censorship-resistant and not trustless. – “Consortium of 10 banks” → better than one bank, still a club that can collude or exclude. – Marketing that says “blockchain” without saying *who validates* → assume the answer is embarrassing.
The word to interrogate is never “blockchain.” It’s “who decides” — readers,
> writers, and rule-makers, named by name.
Next lesson: tokens, coins, and standards.