OKX Blockchain 60 Lectures | Episode 8: Classification of Blockchain

"OKX Blockchain 60 Lectures" is a blockchain educational animation video co-produced by OKX & Sina Tech, targeting users with zero knowledge of blockchain. Through series articles, educational animations, and other forms, it explains blockchain concepts vividly from the perspectives of concepts, technology, and applications, covering 5 major sections and 60 knowledge points. This episode's content was completed under the guidance of Dong Zhao, founder of D Fund.

We all know that blockchain was originally the underlying application model of Bitcoin. However, later on, people discovered that this technology indeed has unique features. Without any company leading it, the Bitcoin system has been operating autonomously from 2009 to the present and has never been breached. Consequently, everyone separated blockchain, improved it, and applied it to other fields such as finance, logistics, and more.

Blockchain itself is a large distributed database that ensures the overall system's security and decentralization by having more people keep records. The more people keeping records, the stronger the decentralization and the higher the security, but the slower the system's processing efficiency, and vice versa.

Because blockchain is applied in different fields, some fields require more security, while others focus more on efficiency. This has led to the emergence of various improved versions of blockchain on the market. Based on the degree of openness to nodes, blockchain is currently mainly divided into three types: public chains, private chains, and consortium chains.

A public chain, also known as a public blockchain, refers to a consensus blockchain where anyone in the world can read, send transactions, and transactions can receive effective confirmation. It is fully open to the entire network, and users can join or leave the network at any time without authorization.

It's somewhat like a public ledger where everyone keeps records together. It's open to anyone, and everyone can freely join or leave the blockchain network, obtain complete data from the ledger, and participate in the blockchain's data maintenance and computational competition. Data is recorded jointly by everyone, fair and transparent, and cannot be tampered with. It has the strongest decentralization nature.

A private chain is the opposite of a public chain. It is a completely private blockchain, referring to a blockchain where write permissions are entirely in the hands of one organization. All nodes participating in this blockchain are strictly controlled and only open to individuals who meet specific conditions. It's somewhat like a private ledger belonging to an individual or company, open only to internal use by the individual or enterprise.

In certain application scenarios, developers do not want anyone to be able to participate in this system. Therefore, they established a private blockchain that is not publicly accessible, where only permitted nodes can participate and view all data. Private chains have a limited number of nodes and are easy to control, so they have the highest processing efficiency but the weakest decentralization. They can be used to solve data management and auditing issues for financial institutions, governments, and large enterprises.

A consortium chain falls between the two, being a consortium blockchain, referring to a blockchain jointly managed by several organizations or institutions. Each organization or institution controls one or more nodes, jointly records transaction data, and only these organizations and institutions can read and write data in the consortium chain and send transactions.

It's somewhat like a consortium formed by multiple companies, using a common ledger for their internal use. Data is jointly maintained by members within the consortium and is open only to internal members of the organization. Its degree of decentralization is moderate; it can be described as multi-center. In terms of efficiency, it is stronger than public chains but weaker than private chains.

In summary, different types of blockchain serve different purposes. Public chains are more inclined toward public infrastructure, while private chains and consortium chains are more inclined toward applications for enterprises or organizations. Each has its unique strengths, and the future will certainly be an era of parallel multi-chain operation and a hundred schools of thought contending.

Thanks to Teacher Dong Zhao for his help and guidance with this episode's content.

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