Enterprises have been experimenting with blockchain technology since around 2016, when the Hyperledger, Quorum, and Corda projects were launched. The focus was largely on private permissioned enterprise blockchains, but starting in 2019 there has been a shift in thinking about public vs private blockchains for business applications. A [survey](https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/blockchain/ey-public-blockchain-opportunity-snapshot.pdf) conducted by Forrester revealed that “Survey respondents ... see this potential, with 75% stating that they’re likely to leverage public blockchains in the future, and nearly one-third saying they’re very likely”. EY’s Paul Brody has [talked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ycu5vGDdZw&feature=youtu.be&t=3668) about the benefits of building on public blockchain, which (depending on the application) may include stronger security/immutability, transparency, lower total cost of ownership, and the ability to interoperate with all of the other applications that are also on the Mainnet (network effects). Sharing a common frame of reference among businesses avoids the unnecessary creation of numerous isolated silos which cannot communicate and share or synchronize information with each other.

The Baseline Protocol is one key project which is defining a protocol that enables confidential and complex collaboration between enterprises without leaving any sensitive data on-chain. It has gained significant [momentum](https://www.oasis-open.org/2020/08/26/baseline-protocol-achieves-key-milestone-with-release-of-v0-1-implementation-for-enterprise/) throughout 2020.