With the upcoming release of Shelley, Cardano - the first third-generation blockchain to emerge from a scientific, research-driven philosophy - will become a fully decentralized public (permissionless) blockchain. A public blockchain, at its core, records data and stores this data in an immutable way. This means that data on a blockchain cannot be changed. However, the types of data that can be stored on the Cardano blockchain may not be always be fully clear. In this post, we’ll look at what data can be stored on the Cardano blockchain, and what data is unsuitable to be stored on the Cardano blockchain. As EMURGO develops products for, invests in, educates about, and advises enterprises on the Cardano ecosystem as the official commercial arm of Cardano, data storage is an important focus for the team.
Data in Our Daily Lives
Data is all around us in our daily lives. The pool of data globally is large, valuable, and growing larger by the minute. The industry of storing, sorting, analyzing and selling data is an important part of the global economy. Data is woven into global supply chains, sales cycles, marketing campaigns, health programs, business management and much more. For all of these examples, the majority of data collected is local and specific to a relatively small number of parties.
Many systems that collect and use data use centralized and permissioned systems for doing so. An example of such a system is a spreadsheet, which is a highly centralized, permissioned ledger that can record a large amount of information relating to specific things. For some of the data in our daily lives, global, open-source blockchain technology is not suitable as a medium of data storage, as much of the data is only relevant to a certain number of people and parties with a warranted degree of privacy.
What Role Does Data Play in Cardano?
