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 actual 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.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 real 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:- Fast, Deterministic BFT Consensus (mining doesn't work as intended in private contexts[1])- Smart Contracts (you need a deterministic language)- Signed Transactions (TLS based authentication trades security & audibility for speed)- Cryptographic data structure for transaction storageThere 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.Disclaimer: I'm a founder in the private blockchain space[2] and founded specifically to make an infrastructure that addresses these issues.[1]: http://kadena.io/blog/MiningInPrivate.html
[2]: http://kadena.io