What’s the difference between a private and public blockchain?

Blockchain has potential applications in many industries, from accounting to agriculture. It’s essentially a distributed ledger, which records transactions between every user in the chain.

There are different types of blockchain: some are open and public and some are private and only accessible to people who are given permission to use them.

A public blockchain is an open network. Anyone can download the protocol and read, write or participate in the network. A public blockchain is distributed and decentralised. Transactions are recorded as blocks and linked together to form a chain. Each new block must be timestamped and validated by all the computers connected to the network, known as nodes, before it is written into the blockchain.

All transactions are public, and all nodes are equal. This means a public blockchain is immutable: once verified, data cannot be altered.

The best-known public blockchains used for cryptocurrency are Bitcoin and Ethereum: open-source, smart contract blockchains.

A private blockchain is an invitation-only network governed by a single entity. Entrants to the network require permission to read, write or audit the blockchain. There can be different levels of access and information can be encrypted to protect commercial confidentiality.

Private blockchains allow organisations to employ distributed ledger technology without making data public.

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