The Evolution of Blockchain Virtual Machine Architecture Towards an Enterprise Usage Perspective

Abstract

Virtualization in the context of blockchain systems represents an essential phase in the development and migration of services from public chains to enterprise logic. Most of the ongoing blockchain uses-cases are using the existing public ledgers, but for business products and services, there is a need for custom tailored solutions to ensure flexibility and security. The Ethereum Virtual Machine has opened new ways to solve problems that require a public proof by executing logic on a decentralized ecosystem. In a natural evolutive process, virtualization logic was shaped by numerous architectures and business requirements. Beside performance and scalability, enterprise virtual machines are starting to focus on features like: formal verification, execution of business logic, cross-domain rules, upgradable smart contracts, data privacy politics and audit tools. The current paper presents an introduction, an architectural walkthrough of the most relevant virtual machines that currently exist in the enterprise blockchain ecosystem and an analytical perspective on the future of industry ready VM’s.