When not to use Blockchain?
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In the past article, we talked about what Blockchain really is and what are the main reasons of its great popularity. However, as much as those things are a plus, they can also be a huge minus, depending on the aspects of your application and the things you want to accomplish. Therefore I would suggest a couple of questions you should ask yourself, which may be a trigger in the end to your change of heart – making you want to use it even more or not wanting to use it at all.
What kind of network are you trying to build?
First of all, if you are not using it to build a business network, abort mission. You do not require that much complexity when you can achieve everything you want with the technologies that already exist and can fulfill your requests.
How important it is to have a decentralized database?
Second, the database. As we said earlier, Blockchain database is a shared
ledger. Everyone can use it, alter it and no one has power over it. Great, right? But do you really need such a shared ledger approach for your project? Thanks to amazing solutions available in the tech world, you can avoid your single point of failure in tons of different ways and fully secure your data storage. Some of them don’t even require network connections. Those solutions are nowadays used by millions of people and are being tested and updated constantly so they can be trusted for use.
How fast do you need your system to work?
Third, how fast do you want your application to execute transactions? Blockchain is pretty slow, comparing to other technologies. Transactions on Blockchain can take dozens of seconds to execute, often even minutes. If speed is one of your most important assets, Blockchain isn’t.
How much money are you willing to spend?
And last, but not least, money. Storing Blockchain data can be very expensive. Since the data is never deleted, it requires a tremendous amount of storage which costs a lot.
Ultimately, it is pretty much complicated. Sometimes, complexity isn’t the answer and does not necessarily mean a better choice. But if you’re really into it, hop on.
The Blockchain technology is still fresh new so it is not too late to join the ride. However, its immaturity brings up a lot of challenges as well, so the ride can get a bit bumpy. One way or another, if you really think through what your goals are, then choosing a tool which will help you achieve them should not be a challenge.
