IOTA as permissioned network?

🌌 Research General
1

Can IOTA be used in a way a permissioned blockchain works? Meaning that data/transactions provided can be accessed by specific participants only. I am thinking of use cases in a supply chain, where certain data should be accessible to different parties in a controlled manner.

Is there more information/research about this topic available?

2

This is an interesting question, and I have two possible answers.

  1. Depending on the application, you can add encrypt payloads so only some people can read them.
  2. Messages will (most probably) contain a network number. By default, the network number will be 0: and this will indidicate that it will be gossiped for the main network only. However, nodes could start a private network by issuing messages with a different network number. These nodes would basically be using a clone of the protocol. However, this clone could only be used to store data.

Once the research department is finished with coordicide, we are going to discuss these types questions more deeply.

Also feel free to elaborate on the use case your imagining!

3

Dear William, thanks for your thoughts on this matter.

Thinking of the hardware industry as such, today we are already facing demand to proof heritage of products and their components and parts. Today these, I call it CV of parts, is stored with the OEM and their suppliers. I can imagine a decentralized system to store and track heritage, usage, rework and disposition of products in a digital twin including components and their parts. Especially in times when production technologies are furhter developed and conformity of systems and their elements to standards is crucial for safety and are regulated, e.g. in aerospace, nuclear, medicine, and many more. This will be a huge market, also looking at complete supply chains including small and specialized suppliers. Coming back to my original questions - I assume that as of today an unpermissioned ledger will not be accepted by the industries due to patents and competition.

Curious which ledger will qualify for this type of applications.

4

Hi @william.sanders - can you relate to the use case I was describing? Any thoughts from your side on further applications and the suitability of the IOTA platform?

Do you know where I find a summary of features IOTA is currently and will offer in the future?

5

Hi, Im sorry I didnt reply sooner!

So this is an interesting case to think about. Yes, an industry could run a private tangle, valueless tangle, where the rate control can be set by mana from the main network. We do not have software to set anything like this up currently, but it could be done!

6

as i commented here: https://govern.iota.org/t/merkle-proofs-of-inclusion/248 the proof of inclusion topic in combination with selective permanodes may can solve this issue. Would be really interesting to see something in the near future. I think this is a really important topic.