Thread by @el33th4xor

This is extremely bullish: private blockchains a la IBM are a technological dead end.
coindesk.com/ibm-blockchain… via @CoinDesk

This isn't good for Hyperledger.

And it doesn't mean that the solution lies in public blockchains. All of the reasons why people wanted private blockchains saree still there. It's just that private chains clearly have too many downsides to pose a viable solution.

Not a single one of the private blockchain solutions that people have worked on has been deployed in a mission critical setting. The reasons are obvious. Private chains are:
- closed deadends
- don't integrate with exchanges, AMMs, etc
- consortia fall apart quickly

But at the same time, public chains:
- have unpredictable fees
- exhibit delays and lackadaisical performance
- do not provide full control over asset lifecycle

This is why @avalancheavax offers a different model, where people can do deployments in between fully private consortia chains and fully public networks.

On Avalanche, one can create "subnetworks" where the criteria for joining the network are up to the creator. Make them limited to a whitelist, and you have private blockchains. Make them non-existent, and you have public chains.

But there are interesting points in between.

For instance, you can create subnetworks where the required hardware to run a node are higher than normal. You can then run your chain at a faster speed. Or enable your smart contracts to use much more storage. No need for a blocksize debate when you can just create a subnet.

If needed, you can ask that all nodes participating in your subnet sign a legal agreement. Now you have legal recourse going all the way to nodes, and the expected behavior of the system is fully defined. If your contact has a bug, how it gets fix it is under your control.

Or if your application has to abide by the GDPR or other data privacy laws, you can create a subnetwork where the nodes agree to abide by data privacy mandates.

Best of all, subnets can pair with other subnets. You can connect your private subnet into mine, because they all speak the same underlying, unifying Avalanche protocol. And when needed, we can hook subnets up to the public Avalanche network, and use DEXes and similar infra.

Overall, the world no longer consists of public and private blockchains, but instead, of a continuum between the two. There's a rich space of possibilities that Avalanche offers.