For all its flaws, the internet remains an incredible tool for democratizing access. Social media gave everyone a voice. Bitcoin gave everyone financial access. Pump.fun let anyone deploy a token. And now Aurora is enabling anyone to deploy their own blockchain. What a time to be alive.
The speed and ease with which a custom blockchain can be launched using Aurora Cloud Consolue’s GUI is impressive. Around 60 seconds, give or take, using an interface no more complex than that for ordering takeout. Give your chain a name; tick some boxes; select your base currency and choose some bolt-ons – oracle perhaps or maybe a block explorer? – and boom, your order’s on its way.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Aurora’s instant blockchain deployment tool means the omnichain era is finally here. If you thought web3 had a lotta chains to choose from, you ain’t seen nothing yet. But with great power comes great responsibility, which raises the question of what to do with a custom chain now that the barriers to creating one have been well and truly eliminated?
No Pain Blockchain
For years, blockchain’s complexity kept all but the most determined of developers from deploying their own network. As a result, the industry was the preserve of a certain group of (mostly male) geeks: coders who enjoyed playing around with daemons, spinning up nodes, and compiling their own libraries. There’s still a job for those people in crypto, but there’s also a role for a much broader cohort of creators who bring greater skills than merely the ability to debug code – useful as that attribute undoubtedly is.
We’ve now reached the point at which anyone with the need to create their own blockchain can do just that without needing to hire a Philippine development team, rent office space, or lock into a six-month contract. This is, by any measure, progress. But while this ability is sure to be welcomed by web3 imagineers and aspiring builders, it does raise a number of pertinent questions, not least what to do with a custom blockchain. What’s the benefit of deploying your own network instead of simply building something on an existing chain where there are already users in place?
The Case for Crafting a Custom Chain
While anyone is at liberty to use Aurora’s interface to create their own blockchain, there’s little point in individuals doing so other than as a vanity project or product demonstration. Short of possibly a small group of influencers, who might have the reach to get some kind of traffic directed towards a custom chain, the market Aurora is addressing is business rather than consumer-oriented.
The sort of businesses that can benefit from blockchain is already well documented and is as diverse as you might expect: from logistics to rare metals and from food manufacturers to pharmaceuticals. For such companies, there are a few advantages to using Aurora’s framework, above and beyond the ease with which it simplifies blockchain deployment.
The most obvious one is to be able to play the game on your own terms. In other words, specify the rules that the network will be bound by, including gas fees, block times, and other parameters. If you can’t find a chain that satisfies your tastes, create your own flavor. Enterprises typically go down the custom chain route because they don’t want to be beholden to erratic gas fees on the likes of Ethereum should everyone wake up and decide to start minting cat NFTs.
Privacy is the other primary driver of enterprise custom blockchains. Financial organizations especially are reluctant to broadcast their financial data across public networks where all and sundry can scrutinize it, from onchain trackers to traders trying to front-run their positions – not to mention hackers intent on inspecting wallet balances to determine whether it’s worth making a phishing attempt.
Taking your business to a private chain – be it a permissioned network, or simply a custom chain that’s theoretically open to anyone to use – effectively solves this. Throw in the need for built-in compliance or other regulatory requirements, something public networks aren’t equipped to do, and there are clear cases where businesses might want to go down the custom route.
1,000 Custom Chains and Counting
Not content with simply creating the tools for businesses to deploy their own chain, Aurora is intent on doing everything in its power to accelerate adoption. It’s declared its goal of supporting 1,000 custom chains by the end of 2025. If it achieves this milestone, it will have put Aurora Cloud Console on the map as the go-to Blockchain-as-a-Service solution for enterprises. In the process, it will have done its bit to mainstream blockchain for global businesses.
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