WeBank Believes Open Consortium Blockchains Are the Future

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The vice-head of China’s first online bank addressed the topic of consortium blockchains and public blockchains at the 4th Global Blockchain Summit in Shanghai on 11 September.

Ma Zhitao (马智涛), vice-head and chief information officer of Shenzhen-based WeBank (微众银行), said that the online lender had concluded that open consortium chains which are combination of public and consortium chains will be an essential part of blockchain ecosystems in future.

“The evolution and refinement of consortium chains should see them evolve into an ecosystem that provides services to the public,” said Ma.

“We have named them open consortium chains (公众联盟链). Our definition of the open consortium chain is very clear – they aren’t at all a single chain, but are a new ecosystem created on the basis of blockchain commercial applications.”

Ma outlined several key missions and points for open consortium blockchains, chief amongst them the provision of services to the public via consortium chains that can be visited via open networks, and are comprised of commercial consortiums.

Ma also pointed out that open consortium blockchains can greatly facilitate public-private cooperation, improve coordination efficiency between institutions, as well as reduce costs and risk for the public.

The open consortium chain as defined by WeBank is subject to heightened requirements in three key areas:

i) Open consortium chains aren’t a single chain, so the entire system must be capable of supporting multiple chains as well as cross-chain communication, as well as capable of supporting the huge volume of transactions from the internet.

ii) A key point will be facilitating the rapid formation of consortiums as well as the low-cost, high-efficiency establishment of consortium chains.

iii) Open consortium chains must be open source.