Many solutions exist in the marketplace today for business networks that are looking to synchronize processes, exchange value, and create network-level trust in what is being shared. However, very few address these challenges together like blockchain technology, especially value and trust networks built on Ethereum. Ethereum is the world’s leading settlement layer for digital assets, shared information processes, centralized and decentralized financial instruments, and much more. It is also an open network, meaning anyone can participate, deploy decentralized applications (dapps), Smart Contracts, and much more to be viewed by anyone. All it takes to connect to the network is an Ethereum client. Consensys Quorum offers two Ethereum Clients: Hyperledger Besu for use with public Ethereum or permissioned networks, and GoQuorum for permissioned networks.
Learn more about the Ethereum Mainnet
Each day, tens of billions of dollars are transacted directly on Ethereum, with billions more moving through dapps and Smart Contracts deployed on the network. The technology has successfully proven that value can be shared, changed, and moved entirely virtually, using cryptographic trust and Smart Contracts. But Ethereum is more than just its native cryptocurrency Ether. It is also a trusted Smart Contract platform and distributed ledger technology. Enterprises are now seeking to take advantage of the advances of Ethereum as a trust, value, and consortium orchestration technology and have banded together within the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA). The EEA provides a specification for Ethereum clients that lays out how Ethereum clients may be extended to provide more of what businesses need when deploying blockchain networks, like security tooling, privacy and confidentiality controls, off-chain storage, trusted computing environments, and much more. It also lays the groundwork for interoperability amongst consortiums and public Ethereum networks to ensure long-term scalability and avoidance of silos. The EEA has information here.
Consensys Quorum is Designed for Enterprise
Consensys Quorum is an enterprise-grade Ethereum platform from the leading Ethereum software company. Both Consensys Quorum clients implement the EEA spec. Consensys Quorum allows developers and consortia to quickly spin up enterprise-ready blockchain networks and dapps by providing robust documentation, templated examples and tools, and integrations with popular development stacks. The permissioning and privacy capabilities of enterprise Quorum networks allow consortia to define custom rules for what can and cannot transact on-chain, who can and cannot see these transactions, and whether or not transaction fees are required, and more. These networks run Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) Smart Contracts and can share or transact unique physical or digital assets and tokens across a number of the world’s leading blockchain platforms and networks that make use of the EVM.
For some use-cases, privacy and permissioning are essential. GoQuorum and Hyperledger Besu leverage the private transaction manager Tessera to enable networks to transact with some or all parties confidentially with “receipt transactions” that sit on the business network’s shared ledger to ensure the longevity and validity of any private transactions. Network members run nodes that have synchronized ledgers and universal ordering of transactions, allowing for process synchronization across business, regulatory, and geographical boundaries. Our goal is to provide options for private or permissioned networks, or to enable enterprises to take advantage of Ethereum mainnet with additional flexibility for their network.
All of those facets make Consensys Quorum the choice for your business network. Consensys Quorum has a number of differentiators:
Privacy: Private transactions allow network members to share information confidentially, and to only those parties privy to the transaction itself, with the trust and validity of that transaction shared with the broader network.
Permissioning: Organization registries, allowlists, and permissioning contracts can provide granularity to who controls and proposes what within a consortium, allowing for customizable needs for different roles.
Mainnet Compatibility: Consensys Quorum can run your use-case on mainnet Ethereum, taking advantage of public infrastructure, decentralization, and the composability of existing dapps
Production-ready: Tailor-made integrations with other Consensys technologies, like Codefi Orchestrate, provide robust APIs and low-code solutions for reaching production readiness quicker, built on always-available Ethereum technology.
Support: Consensys Quorum provides tiered support contracts to ensure that your network has what it needs to succeed with 24x7 support at a rate that scales with you.
Ethereum itself: Consensys Quorum offers access to the largest ecosystem of developers, tooling, and dapps in blockchain, with constant improvements to scalability, security, and functionality, all open-sourced and rolled into Hyperledger Besu and GoQuorum protocols, without proprietary software or vendor lock-in!
Each of the above features are available to all Consensys Quorum networks and are what make them the top enterprise blockchain clients for developers and enterprises alike.
For enterprises that want to make use of the public infrastructure of Ethereum, Hyperledger Besu is fully compatible with the public mainnet, enabling a variety of cryptoeconomic or public data driven use-cases, alongside many other Consensys software products, such as the Codefi suite or Infura. As a production Ethereum client with mainnet capabilities, Hyperledger Besu allows enterprises to take advantage of public Ethereum and the value networks and ecosystem of dapps on-chain with the confidence of enterprise-grade software. Hyperledger Besu opens an entire new market of customers and users across the world with the trust of Ethereum’s settlement layer. As Ethereum upgrades to Ethereum 2.0, Hyperledger Besu will be interoperable to ensure seamless scalability and technical updates for dapps built today.
Ethereum in the Enterprise Unlocks Tremendous Value
Don’t take our word for it, Consensys Quorum is being used by networks of all sizes across a variety of use-cases from a number of integrators.
The Covantis initiative is using Consensys Quorum blockchain technology to modernize global trade processes on Ethereum technology.
Consortiums powered by major financial players like JPM, Mastercard, and others are using Consensys Quorum to modernize financial instruments and explore digital assets
Many banks are banding together to form organizations like Fnality, which use Ethereum technology to distribute and simplify financial infrastructure and services on the blockchain.
Others are using Consensys Quorum to advance track and trace capabilities for immutability and authenticity of luxury goods, like LVMH
Others are exploring Smart Contracts and novel constructs on-chain to optimize insurance claims like USAA and StateFarm.
If you can think through a scenario where existing enterprise systems have a problem that consists of geographically distributed members of a network, a lack of trust between these members, and less of a need for central control, there may be a use-case for Consensys Quorum. It can facilitate multi-party and multi-organizational decision making via Smart Contracts in the form of distributed trust. It enables real-time auditing, operational transparency, and data integrity uses. Most common amongst these use-cases are supply chain, financial services, healthcare, but the list goes on.
Consensys will also be offering a managed service to quickly spin up Quorum nodes and connect them to business networks with provided health monitoring and dashboarding. Consensys Quorum makes available additional components like HSM integrations and key management flows, data analysis integrations through event streaming, and encrypted storage for execution on- or off-chain. This stack is built with a singular focus and approach to work seamlessly and increase time-to-value so that businesses can focus on dapps and value within their networks and not the minutia of running a next-generation business network on blockchain. And when networks do choose to go to production, Consensys Quorum support provides 24x7 coverage for deployed networks with dedicated customer success managers and issue mitigation for deployed or developing networks.
Build Your Blockchain Business Network on Quorum
Your can learn more about Consensys Quorum with case-studies, developer tools, open-source libraries, as well as how to contact us. Get in touch to discuss how to unlock value in your business network.
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