What is Burrow?
Burrow operates as a permissible smart contract machine, aiming to serve enterprises that require specific permissions in their blockchain deployments. In a world where regulations stack up like dirty dishes, Burrow offers a welcome chance for enterprises to deploy blockchains that meet various legal and commercial necessities.
Designed as a fully functional, general-purpose platform, Burrow permits its users to utilize any smart contract compiled by an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) language compiler, ensuring flexibility and compatibility across the board.
Why Businesses Love Burrow
With legal requirements becoming more of a jungle and regulatory standards often changing faster than one can say, “blockchain,” Burrow’s focus on permissions becomes its secret sauce. Casey Kuhlman from Monax aptly states, “Burrow provides a permissioned deployment of the Ethereum Virtual Machine allowing its users to leverage the emergent industry standard, deterministic smart contract interpreter in a permissioned Blockchain network.” This means businesses can deploy their solutions without the fear of getting loose with compliance.
Breaking Down Barriers: Ethereum and Hyperledger
To the surprise of many, Ethereum and Hyperledger are not competitors; instead, they sit at the same table for a whole new blockchain buffet! Brian Behlendorf, Hyperledger’s Executive Director, emphasizes this collaboration in his recent blog post, stating that “any positioning of the Hyperledger and Ethereum communities as competitive is incorrect.” Quite the brotherly love in the blockchain world, eh?
Behlendorf further clarifies that ‘permissioned’ and ‘unpermissioned’ models exist on a wide spectrum, and collaboration on different methodologies brings innovative ideas to life. Who knew two separate factions could play so nicely together?
Future Horizons: EVM Integration
With Burrow joining Hyperledger, the floodgates have opened for other distributed ledger projects under the Hyperledger umbrella to explore EVM integration. Behlendorf notes, “with an Apache licensed Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), other distributed ledger projects in Hyperledger (e.g. Fabric, Sawtooth Lake, and Iroha) can now experiment with integrating the EVM into their respective platforms.”
It’s like a big family potluck! Of course, there’s still work to be done before all the dishes come out of the oven, but the opportunities have never been more tangible.
Building Bridges with Ethereum Community
This venture not only marks a significant step for Burrow but also for relationships with the broader Ethereum community, including collaborations with the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. Behlendorf mentioned how they will monitor the specifications developed there for Burrow’s application, making it a win-win situation. In essence, it’s a budding friendship fostering growth and innovation in the blockchain ecosystem. So, what’s next? Only time will tell, but it looks like a romantic tale of blockchain lovers!
