‘Big Four’ accounting firm EY to use Polygon PoS for business contracts
Ernst & Younger revealed an enterprise contract administration service that might let shoppers put contracts on a public blockchain whereas maintaining enterprise data non-public by zero-knowledge circuits. The agency markets its OpsChain Contract Supervisor as working on Ethereum, though it presently runs on Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS).
The accounting agency — one of many “large 4” alongside Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC — has been toying with enterprise implications for zk proofs since no less than 2018. The announcement might present one other concrete step towards the institutional use of public blockchains, a month after asset administration big BlackRock launched a tokenized fund on Ethereum.
Learn extra: Circle debuts technique to commerce BlackRock tokenized fund shares for USDC
In a press launch, EY stated the service would carry enterprise agreements to Ethereum, however this isn’t precisely the case. Dusk, the zero-knowledge rollup EY developed to do issues like handle enterprise contracts, really runs on Polygon PoS, an unbiased blockchain.
EY Blockchain plans to maneuver Dusk to Ethereum mainnet and to a layer-3 in Dusk’s subsequent improve, Paul Brody, who has led EY’s blockchain arm since 2016, stated.
Brody, reached by a spokesperson, added that Dusk was developed on Ethereum and is deployed to Ethereum’s take a look at community, however to this point, EY’s industrial customers have been drawn to Polygon for its low transaction prices.
Non-public blockchains aren’t non-public
In a previous profession cease, Brody was partly accountable for constructing IBM’s first blockchain primarily based on the alpha model of Ethereum with the assistance of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Brody informed Blockworks in an interview.
Utilizing blockchain expertise for enterprise will not be a brand new concept. In earlier days of Bitcoin and blockchain, teams just like the Distributed Ledger Group sprang as much as discover methods for companies to utilize distributed ledger expertise, typically utilizing non-public blockchains.
This period of so-called enterprise blockchain has principally fallen out of focus for crypto’s vanguard. Brody stated a future for blockchain purposes for large enterprise will lie on public blockchains like Ethereum.
Learn extra: Goldman Sachs head of digital property: The long run is on public blockchains
“The issue with non-public blockchains is that they don’t really present privateness,” Brody stated. “Individuals jumped into this with out actually understanding the expertise, and it was solely after they received into it that it’s like, ‘Oh, all people within the non-public chain can nonetheless see every little thing.’”
Non-public blockchains stored rivals from working collectively partly as a result of they might reveal delicate data like, for example, the amount and costs of a enterprise’s purchases, Brody defined.
Alongside Dusk, EY additionally created Starlight, a zero-knowledge compiler that takes present sensible contracts and privatizes them with hashing.
With these instruments, EY will begin letting companies execute enterprise contracts utilizing Polygon’s sensible contracts. Dusk is just accessible to enterprises. The testnet is free, and the complete product is priced by EY, Brody stated, including that utilizing a public blockchain makes the deployment price cheaper for enterprise functions, for the reason that underlying infrastructure is already constructed.
A promotional doc for the contract supervisor says EY’s product “revolutionizes how enterprises assist handle their contracts by harnessing privacy-enabled blockchain expertise to streamline processes and improve transparency.”
