According to the world Economic Forum:

For supply chain organizations launching new blockchain projects, one of the most fraught considerations typically is whether to use a public or private ledger and what permission models. This decision affects functionality, security, compatibility with other stakeholders’ systems and, perhaps most important, competitive positioning for companies. It is important that supply chain decision‑makers can sort through the marketing hype to pick the best solution for their particular requirements. This paper explores important considerations in making the public‑versus‑private decision and demystify elements of the public-versus-private debate. The findings in this paper were gleaned from research as well as detailed interviews with blockchain users across diverse industries, geographies and applications. This paper is the third in a series covering the co‑creation of new tools for the responsible deployment of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in supply chains.

This was first reported by Ledger Insights and according to it’s report,

It’s possible to encrypt some aspects of transactions on both public and private blockchains. A common alternative is instead of storing actual transaction details, to write a “hash” or digital fingerprint of a transaction to the blockchain. That way, the contents are kept separately and privately, and it’s not possible to derive the data from the hash. Hence if the transaction is manipulated, the hash will no longer match the underlying data.

In the previous reports, it was mentioned that Distributed ledger and blockchain technology promise to have far-reaching implications for global trade and supply chains. However, the extent to which this new technology realizes its potential depends upon how well supply chain actors steward this development. To that end, the World Economic Forum has convened a multi-stakeholder community to design a framework to guide decision-making towards inclusivity, interoperability, and integrity. This highlights the most pressing concerns of a wide group of supply-chain decision-makers with blockchain deployment. In the second paper, it was said that Global supply chains involve numerous organizations and transactions and are becoming increasingly digital. At the core of each of these digital transactions are trust-based interactions with partners. As such, organizations need a comprehensive system for the verification and management of digital business identities that is both dynamic and trustworthy – but current digital identity management systems are costly, inefficient, and may not be sustainable. This white paper lays out foundations for such a system, exploring considerations, proposed principles and recommendations for supply-chain organizations and governments in managing the growing complexity of the digital identities involved in global trade. The paper also introduces and investigates the possibilities enabled by a digital Global Trade Identity (GTID) for legal entities participating in global supply chains – a necessary step in digitizing global trade.

As reported by Ledger Insight,

The WEF document points to most enterprises adopting private blockchains in the near term. But states that as experience evolves that “there is hope it will open the way for increasing use of public chains in applications, where appropriate.” Over time public blockchains will also evolve to meet more enterprise application criteria.

Those criteria include clear contractual agreements; the ability to comply with know your customer regulations; interoperability with current systems; security and privacy requirements; and scalability.