Accenture Announces Editable Blockchain Prototype, Internet Reacts

On Tuesday, consultancy firm Accenture announced it had filed a patent for a prototype it created, along with Giuseppe Ateniese, a cryptographer and professor of computer science at Stevens Institute of Technology, allowing permissioned blockchains to be edited.

Even those of you with only a small understanding of the technology can see why that type of news might be inflammatory: One of the pillars of blockchain is the fact that it's immutable.

Now, it's worth a quick pause to note that it is technically possible to make changes to a blockchain as it stands now. It's just very difficult. Accenture explains the process in its news release:

Unless a sufficient number of participants accept the change, the system essentially rejects it, leaving the blockchain intact and creating an evidence-trail of tampering. If a sufficient number of participants agree to the change, a fork can be added, with one prong ending on or diverging from the faulty block and another prong continuing onward from the corrected block. After a block has been corrected all subsequent blocks must be reconstructed, which can be disruptive and costly and, in some cases, practically impossible.

I'll be honest, when I read that paragraph all I could think about was Doc Brown explaining alternative realities in "Back to the Future 2," but I digress.

You wouldn't buy a sports car with an automatic transmission (more on that later), and you wouldn't put ketchup on a filet mignon. There are certain things, if altered with, change the very core of something.

Since I started covering blockchain a few years ago, a conversation that has been continually brought up by financial firms is its immutability. It is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the fact the ledger can't be tampered with is attractive. On the other hand, financial firms have always been concerned about what would happen if there is an error inputting a trade, or the legal and regulatory ramifications around having a ledger that is impossible to change.

Accenture, it would seem, came up with a way to get the best of both worlds through what it calls a "chameleon" hash function that can recreate the algorithms linking blocks via secure private keys. The capability would allow banks to feel more comfortable using the technology, and therefore lead to a quicker adoption in the space.

Everyone wins! Right?

Wrong.

Reaction

As is the case with seemingly everything nowadays, plenty of folks on the internet felt the need to voice their opinion regarding the news, and it wasn't always positive.

A simple search on Twitter for the keywords "Accenture" and "blockchain" gives some insight. You'll find plenty of jokes, both good and bad, about the merit of the prototype.

The crux of the detractors' argument is this: Creating a workaround to edit the blockchain is essentially destroying one of the main differentiating factors about the technology.

You wouldn't buy a sports car with an automatic transmission (more on that later), and you wouldn't put ketchup on a filet mignon. There are certain alterations that change the very core of something.

I understand where these folks are coming from. The more you strip something down and create loopholes to meet all of your needs, the more you tend to weaken its strengths. The use of secure private keys is something that stands out to me in particular, as this is something bitcoin users have struggled with for years when it comes to their wallets.

Also, isn't there a breaking point when the technology deemed the disrupter is changed so much that it eventually becomes no better an option than the incumbent?

Overreaction

At the same time, I can't help but think this is like when your favorite indie band hits it big and instead of being excited for them you say they sold out.

At the end of the day, banks were only going to play with blockchain if it was on their terms. If that meant changing some of the core rules of the game, so be it. It was their way or the highway.

Speaking of highways, consider the previous example of the sacrilegious automatic sports car. The majority of car manufacturers are, by and large, phasing out the manual gearbox. (There is actually a "group" called the Manuel Gearbox Preservation Society.) Hybrid-type transmissions have gained favor as they offer better performance thanks to advanced technology.

While many people might not like the concept of an editable blockchain, providing it as an option can't be a bad thing if that's what banks want. After all, they'll be the ones paying for it.