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“What is Hyperledger? Hyperledger Explained” – Content:
- Hyperledger Explained
- How does Hyperledger work?
- Hyperledger Design Philosophy
- Hyperledger vs Ethereum
- Conclusion
1. Hyperledger Explained
What is Hyperledger exactly? Hyperledger is a collection of blockchain frameworks and tools. It aims to bring users and developers from many different industries together. All members have one thing in common: They are all interested in learning and using blockchain. This technology has a lot of potentials, but it can not be applied in the same way everywhere. So every company needs special blockchain functions in order to fulfill its purpose.
But what makes Hyperledger so special?
Since different companies have different needs, there will never be a single, standardized blockchain. Instead, we need a network with different features that provides a wide range of solutions for many industries. Hyperledger provides this structure. Thus, it allows you to explore new blockchain ideas while consuming fewer resources. So, the structure of Hyperledger allows to keep up with new developments. It also helps to optimize productivity through specialization, reduces redundancies, improves the quality of code and it is easier to control.
2. How does Hyperledger work?
Blockchain can have different needs for different use cases. For example, there is a high level of trust in the interaction between financial institutions. With hyperledger, we can add more blocks to the blockchain with a shortened consensus algorithm. As a result, we can speed up confirmations. However, if there is a lower level of trust, we can increase the security level.
So we can see those different business scenarios have different needs for confirmation times, decentralization, trust, and other aspects. Thus, each aspect represents a potential optimization point. Hyperledger covers exactly this wide range of use cases. It offers you a large range of individual requirements, through a unified design philosophy.
3. Hyperledger Design Philosophy
To meet the requirements of the different use cases, a design philosophy was developed. Therefore, each hyperledger framework or tool must meet the following criteria:
3.1 Modularity
Hyperledger develops extensible frameworks with common building blocks that you can reuse. Thus, this modular approach allows developers to experiment with different components. They can also modify individual components without affecting the rest of the system. So, this enables developers to create blockchain solutions that are suitable for different needs. The modular approach also helps developers to work freely on different modules and reuse them in other projects.
3.2 Highly secure
Security is in many blockchain use cases important. Thus, it usually involves high-value transactions or sensitive data. With a large number of users and many valuable data flows, distributed ledgers have become a major target for online attackers. Therefore, security and robustness are important for companies to use blockchain.
To ensure the highest level of security, hyperledger uses highly complex algorithms, protocols, and cryptography. As a result, this helps to protect the system from hackers. In addition, everything is regularly reviewed and audited by security experts and the wider open source community.
3.3 Interoperability
In the future, many different blockchains will have to communicate with each other. Thus, they have to exchange data between complex and powerful networks. Hyperledger makes it possible that most smart contracts and dapps are portable across many different blockchains.
3.4 Cryptocurrency independent
You can use hyperledger cryptocurrency independent. This means that you do not need crypto for the network. In addition, there will never be a separate cryptocurrency. The reason for that is because software development for companies should not be used to manage crypto-currency.
However, the design philosophy includes the possibility to create a token that could manage digital objects. However, tokens will not be required to operate the network.
3.5 APIs
Hyperledger offers a variety of easy-to-use APIs that support interoperability with other systems. Thus, this enables external apps to communicate quickly and easily with the hyperledger infrastructure.
Hyperledger vs Ethereum
So the biggest difference between hyperledger and ethereum are the use cases for which they were developed.
Ethereum is specified for a large number of users. Therefore, it runs Smart Contracts on the EVM. Thus, this allows us to develop decentralized applications for mass consumption.
Hyperledger focuses on business. So instead of concentrating on a broad number of users, it focuses on a high degree of trust, resilience, and scalability. It also allows more flexibility that helps business to fit their needs.
4.1 Privacy
So if you work with Ethereum everything you do is completely transparent. Thus, everyone can see every transaction of anyone. As a result, companies cannot keep agreements secret from competitors. That is a big problem in the business world.
Hyperledger allows you to keep transactions secret. Thus, this allows you to make deals visible only to those who are allowed to see them.
4.2 Cryptocurrency
With hyperledger there is no cryptocurrency. Therefore, there is no mining. So a consensus mechanism can be used, which scales much better.
Ethereum, on the other hand, has a cryptocurrency called ether. Thus, it is not as scalable as hyperldger right now. But you can use Ethereum for different use cases that need a financial incentive.
4.3 Consensus Mechanism
At the moment, Ethereum uses proof of work. With Serenity, however, proof of stake should be used for consensus. Both are suitable for a large mass of users and quite costly.
For hyperledgers, companies can choose which consensus mechanism they use. They can decide between no consensus or an agreement protocol called practical byzantine fault tolerance. This allows users to decide what is better for them depending on the use cases.
4.4 Smart Contract Development
If you want to write a smart contract in ethereum, you need to use solidity. It is a contract programming language that was developed especially for ethereum.
If you want to develop smart contracts in hyperledger, you have to use chain code. These are written in Golang by google.
Hyperledger Explained Summary
Hyperledger is a collection of many blockchain frameworks. It allows specially developed for companies. Since it can be customized, different needs can be served. In order to meet this wide range of needs, it follows a uniform design philosophy.
The biggest difference between hyperledger and ethereum is that hyperledger is more suitable for B2B business. It allows high scalability and privacy. This is important if you need to keep information secret from your competitors. Ethereum is more suitable for B2C business. You can use it more generic and it targets a large number of users.
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