Enterprise blockchain platform Concordium is demonstrating an appetite for adoption with the successful launch of its incentivized third testnet. Within the first day of launch, over 1,200 users had undergone the mandatory digital identity check, which is a prerequisite for creating a user account.
The project also attracted 16,665 views, resulting in a network of over 600 nodes now participating in its decentralized consensus. Users who join the testnet and complete testing activities are eligible for a share of 10 million native GTU tokens.
Enterprise blockchain showed significant early promise in the years immediately following Ethereum’s launch in 2015. Many businesses demonstrated their enthusiasm by investing in various ways to deploy smart contracts and decentralized applications. However, over recent years, interest has receded with most enterprise use cases deployed on private or permissioned ledgers.
Concordium aims to buck this trend, claiming to solve the most significant issues facing enterprises wishing to incorporate blockchain. It’s a public platform and permissionless from the perspective that anyone can join, provided they undergo an identity check. Identity services are managed off-chain, with only an encrypted object held on-chain to verify that the check has been done.
The third testnet launch allows users to test this process for the first time. It also includes the initial version of Concordium’s "anonymity revocation" process, which permits the authorities in a governing jurisdiction the right to identify a user if they can demonstrate the legal right to do so.
However, outside of these limited circumstances, users can transact on the platform with complete privacy, thanks to Concordium’s use of zero-knowledge proofs.
No Prizes for Anonymity in Enterprise Blockchain
The cryptocurrency community has tended to guard anonymity in the past, although regulators continue to enforce the implementation of anti-money laundering measures. However, the team at Concordium believe that solving the tension between identity and privacy is critical to unlocking the potential of enterprise blockchain adoption.
The project was conceived by Lars Seier Christensen, founder and former chief executive at Saxo Bank, and is now headed up by Lone Fønss Schrøder, who has extensive experience in senior roles at Volvo, IKEA and Maersk. Therefore, the Concordium team certainly comes with enough credibility to approach businesses that may consider building on public blockchain infrastructure for the first time.
Established Blockchains Eye Up Enterprise Opportunities
Concordium could find itself up against competition from established blockchain platforms once it reaches its mainnet launch early next year. In mid-October, Block.One, the company behind the EOS blockchain, announced the release of "EOSIO for Business," an enterprise version of its platform.
In a bid to appeal to those companies floundering in the technology, Block.One will also offer Blockchain-as-a-Service and consulting to its enterprise clients, along with training programs.
The move appears to be an obvious attempt to compete with ConsenSys, which promotes the use of the Ethereum ecosystem. Earlier this year, the EOSIO Latin American group threw down the gauntlet to ConsenSys by bidding to provide technical support to LACChain, a blockchain framework backed by various public and private enterprises across the Latin American region. Previously, ConsenSys was the sole collaborator.