IBM Lists Five Blockchain Principles For Better Future

To drive the future of blockchain technology into the mainstream, IBM has introduced Five blockchain Principles that will drive its blockchain work.

IBM said that its work will be guided by following Five Principles,

Open is better, promotes the use of open governance and licensing models like Apache2 and MIT. Developers are recommended to use open source technologies instead of closed source or proprietary software technologies.

Projects like enterprise-grade blockchain Hyperledger sport liberal licensing and has diverse sets of code contributors

Permissioned doesn’t mean private, emphasises that use of Permissioned blockchain where identities of participants can be cryptographically determined. Enterprises around the world need to comply with their regulatory and fiduciary responsibilities. Thus, Private blockchain network does not suit to enterprise use case while Permissioned blockchain networks do.

Projects like a digital identity management network, Sovrin and a decentralized global payment platform, Stellar, are examples of public but permissioned blockchain networks.

Governance is a team sport, infers that enterprise blockchains should be distributed and embrace transparent governance. The underlying blockchain platform should out of box provide a democratic structure hardwired into the network, with privacy and permissioning features built-in. Governance frameworks should also take into account a network’s funding model, whether it is financed by membership fees, ledger operators, or something in between, says the announcement.'

The Verified:Me by SecureKey Technologies, is a new Canadian service to help verify identities.

Common standards are common sense states that enterprises should design their networks promotes blockchain network interoperability. It means that enterprises should avoid vendor lock-ins and promote cloud platform interoperability as well. Projects like Hacera Unbounded are a step towards promoting interoperability of blockchains with one anothear through a registry.

Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) defines a set of specifications to identify organizations, people and digital assets (called DIDs) across different blockchain networks.

Privacy is paramount. IBM said that blockchain networks should support privacy regulations like GDPR. Personal data should be kept off-chain, corporate data should be distributed across multiple nodes. Appropriate access controls for blockchain data are provided with the help of permissioned APIs.

IBM listed IBM Food Trust, a blockchain network aimed at ensuring food safety, freshness and sustainability as an example of a blockchain network that respects participants privacy.