| Type | Description | Consensus Mechanism | Scalability | Security | Centralization | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Blockchain | Open to anyone | Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS) | Low-Moderate | High | Decentralized | Bitcoin, Ethereum |
| Private Blockchain | Restricted access | Permission-based | Moderate-High | Moderate | Centralized | Enterprise use cases |
| Consortium Blockchain | Hybrid public-private | Multi-entity consensus | Moderate | Moderate | Partially centralized | Banks, financial institutions |
| Hybrid Blockchain | Combines public-private features | PoW/PoS + permission-based | Moderate-High | High | Partially centralized | Polkadot, Cosmos |
| Sidechain Blockchain | Interconnected blockchains | Two-way peg | High | High | Decentralized | Polygon (MATIC) |
| Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) | No blocks, only transactions | Voting-based | High | Moderate | Decentralized | IOTA, Nano |
| Sharded Blockchain | Horizontal partitioning | PoS or Byzantine Fault Tolerance | High | High | Decentralized | Ethereum 2.0, Polkadot |
2 answers
There are four types of blockchain: public, private, consortium (federated) and hybrid. They differ in who can join, who validates blocks and how decentralised they are.
| Point | Public | Private | Consortium | Hybrid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Anyone can join, read and write | Only invited members of one organisation | Members of a group of organisations | Private network with selected data made public |
| Permission | Permissionless | Permissioned | Permissioned | Mixed |
| Controlled by | No one (fully decentralised) | A single organisation (centralised) | Several organisations (partly decentralised) | One organisation, with public verification |
| Consensus | PoW, PoS | PBFT, Raft, Paxos, PoA | PBFT, voting among pre-selected nodes | Mix of permissioned and public |
| Speed / scalability | Slow, low throughput | Fast, high throughput | Fast | Fast |
| Transparency | Fully transparent | Limited to members | Limited to members | Selective |
| Trust / immutability | Highest; very hard to tamper | Lower; owner could alter records | Moderate | Moderate to high |
| Examples | Bitcoin, Ethereum | Hyperledger Fabric (single company), Multichain | R3 Corda, Energy Web, Quorum networks of banks | Dragonchain, XinFin (XDC) |
| Use | Cryptocurrency, public records | Internal supply chain, auditing | Banking, trade finance among partners | Healthcare, real estate, government records |
Sidechains, sharding and DAG-based ledgers (e.g. IOTA) are scaling designs or ledger structures, not separate access types.
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