Right now, our products are built using Hyperledger Fabric or R3 Corda. In the future, as public blockchains like Ethereum and Avalanche scale and become proven in business use cases, we will migrate over to them, becoming fully decentralized and utilizing a consensus mechanism like Proof of Stake or Gossip Networks.
Short term, we needed to use enterprise blockchain that was proven in a business setting and doesn’t have scaling issues; our customers risk management needs dictated our decisions. Hyperledger Fabric and similar blockchains use a consensus called PBFT that serves our purpose of “trust minimization” needed to provide benefits to construction end users that can't be done in a system that has no trust.
A centralized database wouldn't work here because:
1)It is owned by 1 company, there is no transparency into what is happening with the data. Lack of immutability and provenance of data matters here.
2)Not auditable. No way to prove or verify the transactions without the database owner approving.
These issues prevent that centralized database from giving end users from both a behavioral and technical perspective.
Consensus can be called Proof of Authority, established through negotiations. Highly scalable. This could be achieved without Fabric, or Blockchain, but Fabric has a lot of the common features needed for such a system anyhow.
A centralized database wouldn't work here because: 1)It is owned by 1 company, there is no transparency into what is happening with the data. Lack of immutability and provenance of data matters here. 2)Not auditable. No way to prove or verify the transactions without the database owner approving.
These issues prevent that centralized database from giving end users from both a behavioral and technical perspective.