Picking an enterprise blockchain protocol to develop on: Introduction

In brief – what you will learn

This post introduces a multipart series aimed at developers and not-yet-developers looking to try their hand out at and get a taste of the enterprise blockchain world.

The series is designed to make the developers understand and run a simple “Hello, Block!” smart contract on an enterprise blockchain network in the programming language they are most comfortable with.

The “Hello, Block!” is done in five different programming languages covering five different blockchain protocols.

Programming languages:

• Kotlin
• Java
• JavaScript
• Go
• Python

Protocols:

• Corda
• Hyperledger Fabric
• Quorum
• Ethereum
• MultiChain

A section on each of the protocols gives a simplified architecture overview to let you quickly get a cursory understanding of the protocol mechanics. The overview is schematic and is done in the same style for all protocols so that you can switch between the posts and compare.

A skippable introduction

or why we are passionate about blockchain, this series of posts, and what we do at Chainstack

The world is always changing, but there are a few things you can bet on—things being underground before they go mainstream is one of them. And blockchain is no exception.

Twenty-three years ago, Kevin Kelly, co-founder of the ”Wired” magazine, penned and published a highly influential piece titled New Rules for the New Economy—an article that has stood the test of time. There are a total of 12 rules outlined, and together they give an embracive view of the world we live in today. I always recommend this article to anyone willing to understand how and why the world operates today—digital, real, and business as these three have become impenetrably fused. And things being underground before they go mainstream is a simplistic interpretation of Kevin Kelly’s Rule #4 ”The Law of Tipping Points”.

What “The Law of Tipping Points” states is that significance always precedes momentum. A tipping point is when all prior effort turns into a momentum, the momentum becomes overwhelming, and the success is then a runaway event that feeds upon itself. In epidemiology, this is when a regional infection spread gets to enough hosts to quickly become an impossible to contain pandemic. The tipping point in biological systems is much higher than that of the human-made world of technology. Why? Because there is usually a significant effort involved to contain an infection and there’s always a strong incentive to lower the barrier to entry into technology. And this strong incentive comes from the digital, real, and business worlds being fused together today. Technology and business are all about win-win scenarios; otherwise there’d be no progress and sustainable success.

The world—at least the one we here at Chainstack live in—belongs to developers and technology innovators. This is where some of the most exciting and creative things happen—the things that used to belong to the realms of philosophers, writers, moviemakers, and musicians—all of which moved forth entire generations of people. Remember that an explosion in each of these domains happened on the back of the great effort put into the accessibility of the underlying tools and the knowledge.

This is the developer world today, and the blockchain technology is one of the transformational trends. We like that at Chainstack as moving with the trend with strong fundamentals is always exciting.

We genuinely care about the industry we are in; we don’t rely on hearsay to understand the state of things in blockchain as we do our own research—see Ethereum Cloud Hosting and Enterprise Blockchains Index. And our research evidences that we are putting significant effort into what matters today and what helps the blockchain industry reach the tipping point of runaway success—the gateway for blockchain developers. Regardless of the operation size, goals, or even aspirations—the gateway for all.

Quick blockchain industry facts

• The blockchain industry is exhibiting significant growth, and the market is expected to increase from 3.9 billion in 2020 to 23.3 billion in 2023.
• Chainstack’s own analysis of the developer activity around enterprise blockchain protocols confirms that the industry is maturing.
• Despite the recent world economy’s setback, blockchain job offerings are on a steep growth trajectory.

Bottom line—if you are thinking of getting into the blockchain as a developer, today and for the foreseeable future is still the best time to do so.

Next

Picking an Enterprise Protocol to Develop on: Corda, Kotlin & Java.

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