The Right Mainnet

What is a Mainnet?
A business process is considered baselined when two or more systems store data and run business logic in a verified state of consistency, enabled by using a mainnet as the common frame of reference.
A “mainnet” in the context of the Baseline Protocol is an always-on public utility — serving as a state machine — that sacrifices speed, scalability and fast finality for tamper- and censorship-resistant consensus. Because the mainnet is a permanent public ledger, any encrypted information recorded there can be observed by anyone at any time, forever. This includes parties with the means and know-how to perform advanced analytics, identifying patterns that may reveal strategic intelligence without even decrypting the data itself. 
Implemented correctly by design, the mainnet can be used in global business to solve long-standing synchronization and consistency problems by: 
1.Automating commercial agreements without creating new silos (e.g., like private blockchains do)
2.Democratizing ecosystem access and inclusion without losing system integrity or adding fragmented integrations
3.Enforcing verifiable consistency between different parties’ records without moving the data or business logic from legacy systems and without impacting end users
4.Enforcing consistency in a multiparty workflow (e.g. invoices always agree with the purchase orders) while compartmentalizing which parties know the details of each step 
Of course, one can attempt to accomplish these same goals using a centralized portal or platform, provided he/she does not mind (a) bearing all the cost of setting up and running the portal, (b) forcing all counterparties to use it and (c) sharing privileged information with the portal operator, who might become compromised or have malicious intentions. Network effects are powerful — they should not be underestimated. 
The key to the Baseline approach is to memorialize workflow exit and tokenization on a public blockchain under zero-knowledge while ensuring off-chain state transitions which “rollup” prior to exit are sufficiently entangled. This design mitigates the aforementioned risks without introducing lock-in to create significantly more inclusive, efficient enterprise ecosystems. 
The Ethereum public network is, as of July 2021, the chosen candidate to serve as the common frame of reference for distributed systems implementing the Baseline Protocol. Baseledger is designed to support the Baseline approach, enabling a production ready mainnet architecture at enterprise scale as outlined in the Baseline Protocol.
Baseledger itself can serve as the minimum viable protocol to serve Layer 2 functionalities and exit them into Layer 1 by storing baselined proofs in the network. Additionally, Baseledger always works as the underlying Ledger for coordinating any multi-chain setups, e.g., combining Baseledger with Ethereum for DeFi.
The “Right” mainnet
As explained, the Baseline Protocol — and with it the approach to baselining — already outlines how to overcome the private versus public discussion: by using a public blockchain to establish trust, while keeping private business data on off-chain systems.
Ethereum, the frontrunning candidate for a Baseline mainnet, is facing numerous challenges. The severity of these challenges is indicated by the number of individuals and organizations attempting to address them, such as the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and even the Ethereum Foundation itself:
Scaling problems 
Speed and latency problems 
Finality problem
Noisy neighbor problem
The referenced document discusses these problems by comparing Layer 2 solutions with “Baseline” solutions, but does not discuss the suitability of Ethereum itself as the Mainnet within Baseline. In such a competitive area, it is very likely that different blockchain networks will attempt to position themselves as a candidate mainnet, as evidenced by the uptick in interest from public-permissioned blockchains .
Distilling the learnings from the example use cases and PoCs previously discussed, and including results from the EEA Use Case and Integration Task Forces, three vital enterprise challenges for blockchain adoption have been identified: 
Service Quality
Data Privacy
Integration

They must be addressed to enable widespread enterprise usage of the Baseline approach for distributed business processes in terms of a mainnet.
Service Quality represents the broadest field, applicable to all business services. We will present the Service Measurement Index as the criteria catalog for this field. Data Privacy demands special treatment due to the unique nature of blockchain technology. Integration covers the technical integration of business IT system landscapes, blockchain-specific integration tasks, and the integration of additional business processes.

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What is a Mainnet?

The “Right” mainnet