Will accountants lose their jobs? See how the world's four major accounting firms use the blockchain
Senior executives on the boards of Fortune 500 companies are often skeptical and critical of the idea that companies can use public blockchain networks. Most of the time, engineers and product owners are afraid to even mention any public blockchain network as a viable protocol when designing future solutions.
This is all changing now thanks to the efforts of Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four accounting firms in the world. Ernst & Young recently held an online conference called “EY Global Blockchain Summit 2020,” where they revealed their significant work.
During the three-day event, led by EY Global Blockchain Leader Paul Brody, the audience was updated on the latest EY blockchain initiatives and partnerships with industry leaders including DELL Technologies relationship information.
First, let's acknowledge that this was the first enterprise blockchain event to be fully online and streamed live on YouTube, with over 50 guests in attendance.
The way the event was organized and conducted was very professional and says a lot about the people behind it. In the current COVID-19 environment with mandatory social distancing, this will be the only way to hold a meeting.
One of the most interesting sessions was a keynote by Paul Brody, who explained the current environment, how EY started on its blockchain path, what has been done so far with the EY OpsChain and EY Blockchain Analyzed releases and the way forward .
He very neatly lays out why private blockchains cannot successfully scale and create network effects, and offers his insights on why public networks will give Fortune 500 companies the advantages they need.
The whole idea of transitioning from a private network to a public network is the key to eliminating vendor alliances, potentially lowering your cost of ownership (TCO), and being able to scale up the network without requiring a new R&D department to manage a new blockchain stack .
These goals sound very promising and good, but the path to get there can be challenging as businesses work to adapt to existing compliance rules and regulations and overcome fears of exposing their private data and assets. .
At the center of EY’s efforts on ethereum’s public network is Baseline, an initiative that began a month ago with the help of Brooklyn-based ethereum-focused megacorp ConsenSys and Microsoft.
The goal of Baseline is to enable businesses to collaborate without revealing their private and sensitive data, while utilizing public Ethereum as a middleware for "Baseline". This can be achieved by substituting a mathematical proof of the data for the actual data, based on a cryptographic method known as zero-knowledge proof.
Baseline is an amazing and much-needed effort, and the initiative is also supported by several key blockchain companies, including Chainlink, Unibright, MakerDAO, and Splunk, among others. It will further advance the use of public networks for enterprise processes and will provide insights into long-term effectiveness.
For example, creating a tight-knit baseline for Ethereum has several advantages and disadvantages. A key advantage is that the Ethereum Foundation, ConsenSys and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) are ready to invest funds and allocate resources. Additionally, the availability of developers with Solidity skills and the already existing public network that works with Ethereum will make any future endeavors easy to plan and execute.
On the other hand, a significant weakness is tight integration with only one protocol, and if Ethereum or its future version, Eth2. is a big risk.
Ideally, middleware services should also be able to connect and work with other blockchain protocols to ensure long-term availability, rather than just using Ethereum. We don't want to use protocol lock-in to bind suppliers. Also, the unpredictability of Ethereum’s transaction fees doesn’t help, but techniques such as transaction batching can mitigate these risks to some extent.
At the end of the day, businesses are not waiting for the next CryptoKitties DApp (Ethereum Kitties) to clog the Ethereum network in order to process important transactions.
The reality is that any large enterprise aiming to be a potential Baseline user is not going to just leave their existing cloud or on-premises tech stack and embrace new technology entirely, and should adopt blockchain technology where applicable.
Whatever the risks, EY's commitment to using the public Ethereum network is strong, even developing its flagship OpsChain blockchain-enabled service, which has been used for traceability of food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and medical supplies On-chain, transportation and logistics, fund management, and financial transactions and labor management, its latest version 4.0 builds specifically on the benchmark.
Confident to see EY working with their solid team of blockchain experts, designers and developers to publicly publish their work on the public Ethereum blockchain. This is in stark contrast to the siled approach and business processes typically employed by other large consulting firms.
The original text comes from the English version of Forbes, compiled by the Bluemountain Labs team, and the English copyright belongs to the original author. For Chinese reprint, please contact the compiler.
The original text comes from the English version of Forbes, compiled by the Bluemountain Labs team, and the English copyright belongs to the original author. For Chinese reprint, please contact the compiler.
