Towards a Public BigchainDB
Some have asked: is BigchainDB private or public? The answer is: “N/A”. BigchainDB is a database technology. It is not a network. People have to deploy it for their own context. When deployed, it can be deployed for public use or more private use. It all depends on the permissioning.
BigchainDB can be, and will be, used for public deployments.
A BigchainDB can be configured to be more public, with permissioning such that anyone can issue assets, trade assets, read assets, and authenticate.
Anyone can download BigchainDB code, and deploy it for public use. Right now. Which is awesome!
And not only that, we are taking action do deploy a public network that uses BigchainDB technology. Call it a public BigchainDB. This is extremely exciting to me. Imagine a global public database where anyone can issue assets, transfer them, where others can read them. Imagine a global public database that can store arbitrary structured metadata, hierarchically organized (e.g. JSON style). Imagine an interface to the data where complex reads and writes can be as simple as a single line of query code. This can help to transform the Internet, in a positive transparent way. This is what a public BigchainDB can offer.
The BigchainDB whitepaper elaborates. Here’s excerpts from the paper, talking about the motivation for the public BigchainDB, and how we’re taking next steps.
Decentralization technology has potential to enable a new phase for the Internet that is open and democratic but also easy to use and trust. It is intrinsically democratic, or at the very least disintermediating. …
The discourse is around benefits in both the public and private sector. In the public sector, the most obvious benefit is in the future shape of the Internet and especially the World Wide Web. These technologies have fundamentally reshaped society over the past two decades. The 90s Web started out open, free-spirited, and democratic. In the past 15 years, power has consolidated across social media platforms and the cloud. People around the world have come to trust and rely on these services, which offer a reliability and ease of use that did not exist in the early Internet. However, these services are massively centralized, resulting in both strict control by the central bodies and vulnerability to hacking by criminals and nation-states.
Decentralization promises a large positive impact on society. An antidote to these centralized services and concentration of power is to re-imagine and re-create our Internet via decentralized networks, with the goal of giving people control over their data and assets and redistributing power across the network. …
Ultimately, the public BigchainDB will operate entirely independently under its own legal entity. It will choose its own Caretakers and set its own rules but it will always work toward the long-term goal of a free, open, and decentralized Internet.
One might ask how Bitcoin and a public BigchainDB relate. Well: (a) Bitcoin and BigchainDB solve different problems, and (b) a public BigchainDB can exist, with permissioning similar to Bitcoin. I will elaborate on both points.
Solve different problems. At ascribe, we love the vision of Bitcoin: support transfer of value of a particular token (bitcoins) without needing a high level of trust for intermediaries. Bitcoin is doing alright for that, though it could use more scalability. And, many smart people are working on scalability, which is great. BigchainDB was designed to be something different: a database in the true database sense of the word, which basically comes down to whether you have a query language. Modern programmers use databases everywhere; we recognized that a database with blockchain characteristics (decentralized control, immutability, assets) could be useful; and the result is BigchainDB.
Framing of “public” and “private.” When BigchainDB is deployed towards public settings, i.e. where all permissions are set to open, its access model starts to look very similar to Bitcoin.
For both Bitcoin blockchain, and a public BigchainDB, anyone can see transactions, generate them, or accept tokens. A public BigchainDB is even more permissive when it comes to issuing (native) tokens.
In terms of permissioning, the only real difference is in who validates transactions. For validation, both Bitcoin and a public BigchainDB have a restricted sets of validators. This is one of those cases where “according to theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice; according to practice, there is.” The Bitcoin theory is that anyone can validate. The Bitcoin practice is that only someone with enough hashing power (one of the handful of big miners) has any realistic chance of ever validating a block of transactions. In a public BigchainDB, the restricted validators are selected. Since anyone can set up a public BigchainDB, then it’s up to the network initiator to hand-pick the validators. We’re in the process of setting up a public BigchainDB where the validators (voting nodes) have demonstrated a commitment to the long-term health of the Internet. BTW if you think you might be one of these organizations, please contact me.
To summarize: anyone right now can deploy a public BigchainDB. At ascribe, we’re working hard towards realizing a BigchainDB network. This can help to transform the Internet, in a positive transparent way. We’re working closely with others in the ecosystem to make this a reality. The future is bright. Let’s keep building!
[Note: this article is modified from an earlier version that referenced a recent Cointelegraph article by Amelia Tomasicchio. The original Cointelegraph article had some errors, but Amelia and the good folks at Cointelegraph iterated with us and have since corrected the article. Hence, I’ve updated this article. Thank you, Amelia for the interest in BigchainDB. And for the caricature!]
[Edit: in June 2016 we announced the public BigchainDB network, Interplanetary Database (IPDB).]
