Answer 10 operational questions to receive a ranked recommendation across five DLT privacy models: Hyperledger Fabric Private Data Collections, Fabric private channels, Corda confidential transactions, Digital Asset Canton sub-transaction privacy, and Hyperledger Besu private transaction manager. Includes a bill-of-materials summary for implementation planning.
Fabric PDC: Best for bilateral or small-group confidentiality within a channel. The public ledger stores a hash; private data is distributed only to policy-approved peers. Supports Travel Rule isolation (PDC_TR_ prefix). Requires PDC configuration in configtx.yaml.
Fabric Private Channels: Complete ledger isolation between a subset of organisations. Higher operational overhead than PDCs but stronger isolation. Use when the counterparty subset should not share any state with the broader network.
Corda Confidential Transactions: Privacy by design — only counterparties to a specific state see it. No global ledger broadcast. Confidential identities hide the real X500 name from other network participants. Best for bilateral capital markets flows.
Canton Sub-Transaction Privacy: Daml contract field-level privacy. The Global Synchronizer's 13 Super Validators are content-blind — they validate without seeing payload. Best for multi-party atomic DvP where each party should see only their leg.
Besu Private Transaction Manager: Tessera deprecated June 1 2026. Migration to an alternative private tx manager required. Historical advantage was EVM-compatible privacy; this advantage is now impaired pending migration. Not recommended for new deployments until migration path is confirmed.