Goldman Sachs Drops Out of R3 Blockchain Group
I can't say I'm all that surprised. R3 serves as both an R&D lab and a place to connect vendors and potential clients. Moreover, the focus is on private/permissioned blockchain tech. The tech in this space is still quite immature overall and pretty much everyone has had a hard time building <i>actual</i> blockchain infrastructure vs things that are sorta like a blockchain. If you can't show clients value for their membership in R3 (because the tech's not there) then what's the value of staying a member (especially if you've seen all the vendors in their portfolio already) vs rejoining when things change? This isn't R3's fault of course, as I think the tech in this space is just getting started and they're in a great place to help it along; members will come and go.<p>I spent a year investigating blockchain applications for JPM so I've seen most of the permissioned blockchain solutions that are out there. Unfortunately, none of the solutions I saw were <i>real</i> blockchains. The more technical groups in banks (which GS has) surely realize this as well. The solutions I've seen consistently lack at least one of the following necessary features:<p>- Fast, Deterministic BFT Consensus (mining doesn't work as intended in private contexts[1])<p>- Smart Contracts (you need a deterministic language)<p>- Signed Transactions (TLS based authentication trades security & audibility for speed)<p>- Cryptographic data structure for transaction storage<p>There are other features you need, but these are the big distinguishers I noticed. While technically you don't even need smart contracts or fast BFT consensus, I believe the tech isn't useful enough to justify the migration costs without them.<p>Disclaimer: I'm a founder in the private blockchain space[2] and founded specifically to make an infrastructure that addresses these issues.<p>[1]: <a href="http://kadena.io/blog/MiningInPrivate.html" rel="nofollow">http://kadena.io/blog/MiningInPrivate.html</a>
[2]: <a href="http://kadena.io" rel="nofollow">http://kadena.io</a>