Public Distributed

Ledger Networks
Market Assessment
Disclaimer

The information, statements, statistics and commentary contained in this report have
been prepared by PwC from material provided by Hashgraph Consortium and publicly
available material. PwC may, at its absolute discretion andwithout any obligation to
do so, update, amend or supplement this document.

PwC does not express an opinion as to the accuracy or completeness of the

information provided, the assumptions madeby the parties that provided the
information or any conclusions reachedby those parties. PwC disclaims any andall
liability arisingfrom actions taken inresponse to this report. PwC disclaims any and
all liability for any investment or strategic decisions made as a consequence
of information contained in this report.
PwC, its employees, and any persons associated with the preparation of the enclosed
documents are in no way responsible for any errors or omissions inthe enclosed
document resultingfrom any inaccuracy, misdescription or incompleteness of
information provided or from assumptions madeor opinions reachedby the
parties that provided information.

Note: Some of the authors of this report have invested in Hedera tokens. To maintain
full objectivity, the review and sign off of the content was completed with PwC global
blockchain leaders who do not have any Hashgraph based investments.

This report is not for public disclosure. Hashgraph have agreed within the terms of
engaging PwC for this assessment to issue this report only to agreed upon parties
(private PwC permissioned distribution of this report).

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 2
Table of Contents
Page
Executive Summary 4

Notable Events 5

Technologies 6

Technology Comparison Categories 10

Distributed Consensus 11

Performance 14

Fairness 15

Security 16

Programmability 18

Governance 19

Closing Remarks 20

Technology Comparison Summary BC 21

Technology Comparison Summary DAG 22

Appendix – Building on DLT 23

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 3
Introduction
Executive Summary

Fast
In forward
2008 Bitcointwowas
years and the areality
launched: of micro
remarkable paymentthat
innovation data,lends
generated from
itself to manya fair
securing
thousands
share of networked
of global industry &devices, will be voluminous.
media interest. Its success inCurrent
creating payment networks
a trusted, are
decentralized,
in no way designed to be able to accommodate this new level of service
public peer-to-peer financial ecosystem has directly challenged and in some way changed demand.
the landscape of payments. Money as we understand it, capital raising, supply chain and
During
many the same
others assettwo yearsmarkets
transfer we are trading
are beingborderless
materially digital securities with the
disrupted.
current clearing and settlement platforms unable to cost effectively handle the
At the same
change time itrequirements.
in service is widely acknowledged that the speed
Across developing of innovation
nations, telco basedsince Bitcoin’s
marketplaces
arrival has been have handed 1.5
so impactful thatbillion unbanked humans access
newregulatoryframeworks areto digital financial
requiredto accommodate
services.
them, many of which are in various states of progress. However, for all of its brilliance there
are inherent limitations in the applicability of the Bitcoin innovation.
New at scale technology services are required and so the question is, are blockchains
These limitations
or DLTs going to have
solvegiven rise
for this to an
new entire Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) industry
demand?
with an often open and common goal to solve for. The industry is well funded, in 2017 for
example,
Speed of over US$900m
commits came from
to immutable traditional
record is key toVC thefunds to be
service invested inand
extensibility over 290
initiatives. In the same year, over US$5.6 bn in funds were raised
therefore success of any of the new networks. Having this as a working assumption via Initial Coin Offerings
(ICOs) and allocated
we conclude to a least 435
that proof-of-work initiatives. 2018networks
blockchain-based is continuing this trend.
are going to be limited,
mainly due to their consensus method (as featured later), in where they take and
The
keepentire
marketBlockchain
share. Thisor DLT
leadsindustry is too
us to focus onextensive
the moreto covermarket
recent in a single report;
entrants andour
objective
conclude that using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) and not blockchains will takeconsensus
is to focus on a core comparison of the public DLT networks and their the
algorithms. We also
lead in this space as analyse theinkey
they have, characteristics
theory, a superior involved
consensus intype
the these networks such as
for managing
performance, consensus,
scale, throughput, latency,security,
and in fairness,
some casesandsecurity.
governance.

PwC
PwC
informationfor
Confidential information forthe
thesole
solebenefit
benefitand
anduse
useofofPwC’s
PwC’sclient.
client. 4
Notable Events accelerating as more investment pours in

1991 2011 2017

• First Work on • Litecoin ICO mania
Secured Blocks 2015 Tezos ICO ($232) issues July

IOTA Whitepaper Bitcoin cash fork

2013
Bitcoin Gold fork
• Ripple XRP
2008
• Launch of NXT
• Blockchain
Concept paper

2018
• Telegram ICO
2016 reversal

• DAO Launch • EOS governance

issue
2014 • DAO Theft
• IOTA governance
2009 • Emergence of Blockchain 2.0 • Ethereum Governance issue
issue
• Bitcoin • Adoption of Smart Contracts • Multiple Bitcoin
Launch • Swirlds whitepaper
• 50 Million NXT Theft forks off ERC20-
1999 • Bitcoin Governance like contracts
2012 • Launch of NEO
issues
• First introduction of • Launch of NEM • Hedera Hashgraph
• Peer Coin • Linux Hyperledger public network
the PBFT algorithm
Foundation launch

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 5
Technologies
Public DLT networks hold the promise to revolutionise commerce. They We distinguish public from private (“permissioned”) DLT networks;
will provide for the seamless creation and execution of complex financial private networks are deployments of DLT technology where the
contracts at a scale that runs nations, whilst also making practical participating entities are known to each other in advance and form a
extremely small payments at tremendously high volumes characteristic of relatively stable closed user group, either divisions within an individual
the Internet of Things (IoT). All this will be possible in a robust, company or a consortium, and although in some cases the same underlying
decentralised, and trusted manner, without intermediaries and often technology may be used in both private and public deployments there are
without any human involvement at all. typically additional concerns with a public deployment, which faces a more
dynamic and high-risk environment. Leading private (enterprise) DLT
Historically, parties to commercial agreements and exchanges have technologies include IBM Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda, Digital Asset, and
maintained their own independent records; frequently this leads to Ripple.
discrepancies and the need for a time-consuming reconciliation process. In
many cases a trusted third-party may operate as an intermediary to Whereas purely private DLT networks are relatively simple to define by
facilitate the transactions, but in turn extract a fee. All such overhead their closed nature, there are degrees of openness that may be associated
represents a barrier to efficient trade. In contrast, a trusted, dynamic, real- with networks that have the ambition to be a public utility.
time consensual view of mutual transactions would eliminate much of this
overhead. At the most open end of the spectrum are networks like Bitcoin and
Ethereum, where there is no control over who joins and they are close to an
Until DLTs entered the fray, the likely implementation of this would have anarchy, albeit with behaviour incentivised through game theory and
been a cloud-hosted database with appropriate business logic and access individual gain; these represent a strong appeal in some quarters and an
permissions; such systems have been built by consortia, where the equally strong antithesis in others. These are truly “permissionless”.
economic and political drivers are overwhelming and the operating cost
can be borne by the enterprises involved, but the technical and legal costs In a more middle ground are networks that are open to join, but where
and complexities for such single-point solutions are often prohibitive. some of the functionality is retained to a more limited group of nodes; this
may be a transitory situation to guarantee stability as the network grows,
In contrast, nascent public DLT networks provide an infrastructure and in or a more permanent feature.
some cases framework for the construction of trusted distributed
applications, driving down both implementation and operational costs. Further on in the spectrum are networks where membership is nominally
open to all, but is controlled by a governing body of some form. One could
In this report we examine eight public networks and their various argue that this is closer to the consortium model, but the key point from
associated technologies. our perspective is that the intent is to allow anyone to operate a node so
long as they meet basic fitness criteria.

We have therefore chosen to include in this report networks on the whole

spectrum above with pubic utility ambition.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 6
Technologies
Blockchains, as the name suggests, are ledgers composed of a chain of The eight public DLT networks chosen for inclusion here range in
blocks, reaching right back to the first (genesis) block and each block ambition and scope, from those that offer only a cryptocurrency
containing a number of transactions. New transactions are broadcast to capability, through those providing an API for building distributed
the network by a submitting node and remain pending until selected for applications, to those seeking to create a global virtual computer. All
inclusion into a new block by a miner node. New blocks are produced at though include a cryptocurrency as a fundamental feature. The eight
intervals by miner nodes, attached to the current head of the chain with are:
a backward-linking hash of the previous block and broadcast to the
network. Bitcoin: Blockchain - cryptocurrency with some scripting capability
around payments, Proof of Work based
DAGs data structure is a mesh of events, each event composed of one or
more transactions and linked to two prior events (by hashes of those Ethereum: Blockchain - distributed virtual computer, Proof of Work
events, similarly to a blockchain). Prior in this instance means based
previously in time at the event-issuing node, which due to network
latency and simultaneity concerns may not necessarily be the same Nem: Blockchain – distributed application platform using Proof of
ordering as seen by other nodes, which implies the need for an Importance
additional process to extract a consensus order. This mesh forms a
Directed (backwards in local time) Acyclic (no loops) Graph (a EOS: Blockchain – distributed operating system using BFT-Delegated
mathematical construct consisting of vertices (=events) and edges Proof of Stake hybrid consensus
(=backward pointing hashes).
IOTA: DAG – feeless cryptocurrency for Internet of Things
Focusing of public DLT networks, we further refine the grouping into
Hedera Hashgraph: DAG – distributed application platform using
blockchains and Directed Acyclic Graph-based (DAG) technologies,
both so-named for their respective fundamental data structures. unique consensus mechanism offering deterministic asynchronous BFT
(aBFT)

Byteball: DAG – decentralised database

Nano (RaiBlocks): DAG – feeless cryptocurrency

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 7
 Technologies: Blockchains
Block n-2 Block n-1 Block n
Blockchains grow a block at a time as the chosen miner groups waiting
transactions into a block, executes any actions associated with them and Header Header Header
broadcasts the new block to the network. Subject to the consensus model Magic Number Magic Number Magic Number
chosen, the chain may fork as more than one miner produces blocks, Block Size Block Size Block Size
though eventually a mainchain will be chosen and the fork becomes an Version Version Version
orphaned branch. Transactions on an orphaned branch are not Previous Block Previous Block Previous Block
considered confirmed and they effectively remain in the pool awaiting Hash Hash Hash
inclusion in a future block. Merkle Root Merkle Root Merkle Root

Timestamp Timestamp Timestamp

The block production rate is a key design choice in blockchains: longer
Difficulty Target Difficulty Target Difficulty Target
times, particularly where they are substantially larger than the global
Nonce Nonce Nonce
network block propagation time, reduce the amount of short-term forking
that occurs due to miners concurrently producing valid but different
blocks. They also enhance security by making it much harder for Payload Payload Payload
fraudulent miners to rewrite history several blocks back from the head of Transaction Count Transaction Count Transaction Count
the chain. The main negative is that transaction inclusion and Transaction 1 Transaction 1 Transaction 1
confirmation (latency) can take substantially longer – often more than an
hour with Bitcoin. Transaction 2 Transaction 2 Transaction 2

Transaction n Transaction n Transaction n

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 8
Technologies: DAGs
Event
In contrast to blockchains, DAGs progress in a more granular and parallel
fashion an event at a time and although an event may contain a number of Header
transactions, in some cases this may be just a single transaction or a Parent 1
metadata update. With DAGs there can be multiple concurrent events Parent 2
emitted by active nodes, not effectively limited to a group of miners with Timestamp Event
massive compute (hashrate) power, and the network as a whole eventually Node Signature Header
determines order. Various DAG algorithms make different choices
Parent 1
regarding how to reach this distributed consensus, how fast, how
Payload Parent 2
efficiently, and how deterministically that happens. They also make
Transaction Count Timestamp
varying choices of the information about the events recorded into the
Node Signature
DAG. Some broadcast events to the whole network, others are more point- Transaction 1
to-point or use a group of trusted witnesses to validate the growing DAG.
Transaction 2 Payload
DAGs hold the promise to have higher throughput, lower latency, be more Transaction n
Transaction Count
scalable, more robust, and fairer than blockchains. Transaction 1

Transaction 2

Event Transaction n
Header
Parent 1
Parent 2
Timestamp
Node Signature

Payload
Transaction Count

Transaction 1

Transaction 2

Transaction n

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 9
 Table of Technology Comparison Categories

Consensus Performance Fairness Security Programmability Governance

The Governance of a public

Generally measured Consideration of distributed ledger is the system by
Ability of a decentralized
The method by which in terms of throughput vulnerabilities to: which it is controlled and
technology in treating The degree of sophistication
the network agrees on in transactions per Consensus Hijack, operated and the mechanisms by
all transactions in the and usability of any end user
the order of events second (TPS) with Centralisation, DDoS, Sybil which it, and its people, are held
same way. Our Focus is programming features in the
and implied state (e.g. consideration also Attack, Smart Contracts, to account. Ethics, risk
on timeliness, ordering, network. management, compliance and
of account balances). given to latency and Crypto Strength, Open
and costs.
scalability. Source, Other. administration are all key
elements being considered.

Comparative scoring Range is from basic

Comparative score out Comparative scoring of Comparative score
poor, moderate, good, Comparative scoring 0 to 5 scripting through to a
of 10 poor, good, great out of 10.
excellent virtual global computer

It should be noted that the scoring used by PwC is completely subjective from the PwC technical authors’ perspectives, taking into consideration all quantitative and qualitative data examined.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 9
 Distributed Consensus
Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)
In any distributed system consisting of multiple independent actors that seeks to
maintain a common view of some shared state, for example an account balance, it Traditional consensus protocols, such as Paxos, are designed to handle failures
is necessary for the system as a whole to reach a consensus on what that state is amongst a group of cooperating nodes, but fail when presented with nodes behaving
and therefore the order of any transactions that contribute to that state. unreliably or maliciously such that the rest of the network struggles to reach a
Thus, for Distributed Ledger Technologies (Blockchains, DAGs etc), consensus is consensus as to whether to include those nodes in the more general consensus
the primary functional element and what form it takes and how it is implemented mechanism. This is termed Byzantine failure from the Byzantine Generals
has fundamental impact on the operation of the different products, from Problem.
performance through security, fairness, and economics. The choice of consensus
algorithm defines the art of the possible with any DLT. In 1982 Lamport & Pease showed consensus fails with the possibility of bad actors
(Byzantine failure) when more than a third of actors are failed / bad. The solution
In a globally distributed public system, where it can be expected that many bad where less than a third are bad is Byzantine Fault Tolerance, but this requires as
actors will be present trying to exploit the system and network failures are a daily many coordination rounds as there are failures and is impractical in most systems.
reality, the consensus mechanism must be robustly secure and reliably converge to
a common result in a timely and efficient manner. One of the key advantages of all the BFT protocols is that they reach consensus
deterministically rather than probabilistically – i.e., you absolutely know when your
Research on distributed consensus extends back decades, and relates to work on transaction is committed.
State Machine Replication, Distributed / Replicated Databases, ACID compliance
(Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable transactions), CAP (Consistency, Practical BFT (pBFT)
Availability, Partition tolerance - pick 2), and other core concerns of computer
science. Introduced in 1999 by Castro and Liskov, Practical BFT attempts a realistic
(practical) version proven for actual deployment as opposed to a theoretical model.
Various mechanisms have been proposed over time and continue to have
applicability in appropriate use cases: two phase commit protocol (2PC), using a A leader is chosen to coordinate the consensus from a group of known members. If
designated leader; three phase commit (3PC), to address blocking failure modes of the leader is unresponsive a new leader is chosen. Correct so long as f < (n-1)/3,
2PC; Paxos; RAFT; ... where n is the total number of nodes and f is the number of faulty nodes.

Paxos for example relies on a leader node (can be any node) to propose itself, gain Asynchronous regarding correctness, synchronous for liveness (weakly
acceptance from the majority of other nodes, propose a consensus, gain agreement synchronous). Makes optimizations over previous approaches including
by the majority, and if all this succeeds inform everyone of the outcome. This cryptographic signatures and digests, tentative early execution, and elimination of
works well with a limited number of nodes (high communication overhead) and redundant full responses.
where they are broadly cooperating, but not with Byzantine failure or at scale
(exponential message growth). Potentially vulnerable to successive Denial of Service (DoS) attacks against the
leader, requires a known set of members, and still involves significant (point-to-
These mechanisms and issues seem arcane and abstruse, but are fundamental to point) communications overhead to reach consensus such that as n becomes large
the safe and performant operation of public ledgers; the choices made amongst the the protocol becomes increasingly impractical - O(n2). Applicable to private
different ledger technologies in this area have deep and far-reaching impact. enterprise deployments with a limited number of nodes.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 11
Distributed Consensus
Asynchronous BFT (aBFT)
Whereas pBFT assumes that the supporting network is weakly synchronous – that Problems with PoW include a significant waste of resources with the energy and
messages will eventually arrive after some bounded time – aBFT loosens this equipment required for mining, high latency, low throughput, and questionable
constraint to only require that some message eventually arrives from a node. fairness as the miner chooses which transactions and in which order to include in
the block.
Operating in the unreliable Internet with potentially malicious intermediaries this is
a significant step forward and represents leading edge consensus technology, Whilst this approach has shown itself to be robust in reaching probable eventual
currently implemented by HoneyBadgerBFT and the Hashgraph algorithm. consensus, it remains vulnerable to attacks if some party or cooperating parties
gain control of 51% of the total network hashrate.

It only reaches consensus probabilistically for any given transaction as that

Proof of Work (PoW) transaction’s block is appended by further blocks until it becomes very unlikely
that it is on a fork that will eventually be discarded; this is widely considered to be
Proof of Work requires that a node prove it has invested significant computational
at 6 blocks by convention from the initial Bitcoin client.
resources (work/cost) in forming a new block for the head of the shared blockchain
(mining). It shares this new block with other nodes, who if they agree with its
validity will begin trying to produce the following block based on this one. In this
way, the chain grows as a series of blocks . Proof of Stake (PoS)

Should another node produce an alternative valid block at the same time (effectively Proof of Stake avoids the resource and power inefficiencies of PoW. The miner of
within the propagation delay window of the network), then a fork occurs: some of the next block is chosen at random, but weighted by their proportion of the stake
the network will be building a chain based on one new head and some on the other, (operating currency) amongst online nodes. This has the proposed added
subject to which version they received first. Eventually, one branch will grow faster advantage that it defends against the 51% attack of PoW in that those having the
than the alternatives and become the consensual state. larger stakes in the system also have the most to lose through malfeasance.

The proof of work is typically finding a cryptographic hash of a block of data subject A concern is the nothing-at-stake problem: in a fork, a miner is not disincentivized
to certain difficulty criteria and soluble only through brute force (number of from working both branches - introducing penalties can mitigate this.
different hashes tried), hence the hashrate of a miner directly influences its
probability of successful mining (and the attached reward) and getting its block
accepted as the shared truth.
Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS)

As for PoS, but allows nodes to delegate their stake to other nodes, introducing a
form of trust-based voting and potential for increased efficiency by reducing the
number of nodes directly involved in consensus.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 12
 Distributed Consensus
Proof of Importance (PoI) Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET)

Proof of Importance is related to Proof of Stake but seeks to address some Miner nodes participate in a lottery for the right to mine the next block. Basedon a
concerns with it by taking into account how well-regarded a node is. random delay time they must wait before mining.

The exact measure of this may vary with implementation, but for instance could be Relies on all nodes running trusted hardware (Intel SGX or similar) to guarantee
based on the number of valid transactions a node has originated and the value of the randomness (of elapsed time) and proof of having waited that period.
those transactions.
This is much more energy efficient than Proof of Work and has applicability to IoT
scenarios, implemented in Intel Hyperledger Sawtooth.

Bitcoin Ethereum Nem EOS IOTA Hedera ByteBall NANO

Hashgraph
Probabilistic Probabilistic Proof of Importance Delegated Central Event based virtual 12 Witness Delegated
Proof of Work Proof of Work (PoS + History) Proof of Stake Coordinator voting using the designated nodes Proof of Stake
Markov Chain aBFT Hashgraph
Monte Carlo Algorithm
Algorithm

7/10 7/10 6/10 6/10 4/10 9/10 7/10 6/10

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 13
Performance
The scoring below is a snap shot in time and will change both
positively and negatively as new features are rolled out.
The performance of any public network is important, particularly one that Poor Moderate Good Excellent
carries payments. For example, the VISA network, widely considered to be the
largest payments network, is claimed to be capable of a throughput of 56k Bitcoin
Transactions Per Second (TPS). This is currently managing primarily human Throughput
Latency
initiated transactions, but with the coming age of the Internet of Things (IoT),
Scalability
and the provision of infrastructures able to handle micropayments with realistic
fees, there is an expectation that the volume of payments will grow very Ethereum
Throughput
significantly, perhaps to 10M TPS. Any public network which intends to Latency
compete in this space must demonstrate realistic scalability and suitable Scalability

throughput to be able to serve the next generation of digital commerce. Given Nem
the realities of global communication network latencies and throughput which Throughput
Latency
underpin these DLT technologies, it is important that a sharding approach is Scalability
available to support ultimate scalability.
EOS
Throughput
Another key performance measure of such a system is the latency, or time that Latency
it takes to complete a payment. A typical use case that highlights this is in a Scalability

retail point-of-sale situation, the payment needs to complete within a few IOTA
seconds to a point that the customer is free to leave the store. When we are Throughput
Latency
considering public DLT networks, such as blockchains and DAGs, there are finer Scalability
degrees of latency to consider:
o the time it takes for a submitted transaction to be initially accepted into the Hedera Hashgraph
Throughput
system and broadcast to relevant nodes Latency
o the time it takes for a transaction to be included in the ledger Scalability

o and the time it takes for the transaction to become practically irrevocable i.e.,
ByteBall
system consensus to be reached (generally accepted to be after 6 blocks in Throughput
Latency
blockchain, but this is probabilistic rather than absolute). Scalability

NB: For Blockchains; anythingthat is only in the mempool is ephemeral and NANO
there is no guarantee it will ever be included into a block; even after it makes it Throughput
Latency
into a block, there is a chance it is on a branch of the main chain that will be Scalability
pruned in future, hence the 6 block length stipulation in many cases.
Performance information sourced from public reports including developers own. In somecases wildly
conflicting, little or no information available.
PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 11
Fairness

Order of transactions Stability (currency) Poor Good Great

The order of transactions agreed Users of a currency (other than speculators)
upon by the network consensus is generally seek a stable value in order for Bitcoin
a fundamental property that can it to be useful in everyday transactions.
be extremely important in some The economic model of a digital currency
systems, less so in others. For may or may not encourage this.
Ethereum
example, in a pure cryptocurrency,
one spend appearing prior to Fees
or after another is not terribly Fees are generally necessary for transactions
Nem
important unless they are conflicting in a public system to pay for the cost of
transactions (double spend) or operating the system, but they should be
constrained by a balance (payment as low as is commensurate with such
EOS
in before payment out). However, operation so as not to impede trade. Fees
in other systems where order is should be designed to account for both
important, such as an auction, the short term and long term costs. The IOTA
ability of a party (e.g.miner) to alter Internet of Things / micropayments are
the order of transactions as recorded good examples where systems based on
in the ledger compared to reality is Proof of Work mining will likely necessitate Hedera
impractical transaction fees. Hashgraph
a real concern.
Fees may be based on the transaction,
Censorship its size, its storage requirements,
The potential for transactions (from ByteBall
and its compute requirements.
some users) to be delayed, perhaps
In miner-based systems, the actual fee may
indefinitely, is a problem in systems
be determined by market conditions - the NANO
where a leader / miner creates the
number of transactions awaiting processing
ledger, or where a limited subgroup
and the fees they are offering to the miner for
of the system are responsible for
processing. Therefore, low value transactions
consensus.
may incur a higher percentage charge or wait
a long time to be processed.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 15
 Security
Public Distributed Ledger Technology brings additional security issues but does not The 24x7 Availability of a public ledger network to process transactions and its overall
supplant many traditional digital security concerns: fair and honest behaviour are crucial to widespread adoption. Availability can be
compromised through design errors, software bugs, unmitigated hardware failures, or
Access Control - It is necessary to Identify actors in the system, be they software the deliberately disruptive actions of bad actors in the public network. The former
agents or humans (although these actors may be [pseudo-]anonymous), to elements may all be mitigated by common industry best practices, but bad actors are a
Authenticate the actor and to apply appropriate Authorisation to their actions. This special concern that warrants further consideration:
is primarily done using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and brings with it the usual
issues of Key Management such as key loss and secure storage of Private Keys. The potential vulnerabilities, or Attack Surface, of public DLT networks are quite
extensive exactly because they are publicly networked distributed systems and also in
The ledger should have data Integrity, such that data stored and transmitted is not part due to the subtleties of the various consensus algorithms. We consider four main
corrupted, provided by Cryptographic Checksums (hashes) and transactions would areas of risk:
ideally have Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable (ACID) compliance, which is
challenging in highly distributed systems and a core responsibility of the chosen Consensus Hijack – dominance of the network by gaining more than 50% control and
consensus algorithm. therefore being able to force own version of truth on other members. For example, in
blockchain proof of work networks, having >50% hashrate (for a period of time); some
Transactions should be subject to Non-Repudiation - “my word is my bond” - which proposed attack schemes, such as selfish miner collusion, suggest a vulnerability with as
can be achieved through PKI Digital Signatures. little as 25% hashrate.

Given that much of the transactional payload in public ledgers is financial in nature, Denial of Service – disabling progress on consensus by preventing communication by
Confidentiality is important to many users. Some ledgers take the approach that or with a subset of the nodes in the network, or enforcing own view of consensus by
pseudo-anonymity of users through anonymous addresses is sufficient, but recent work blocking a sufficient number of fair nodes. Usually enacted by a botnet to gain sufficient
has shown that historic analysis of the public ledger correlated with external bandwidth and therefore being considered a Distributed DoS (DDoS). The enacted
information can uncover identity. There is also the concern that current PKI method may be one of:
approaches, which rely on the computational infeasibility of factoring a large number
• Spamming – sending large numbers of invalid messages
into primes, may be broken using quantum computers at some point in the future;
realistically, most in that field believe such a possibility is at least 10 years away, but • Transaction Flooding – large numbers of valid, but unnecessary messages
some users would be concerned about historic cracking (and public ledger data exists
• Penny Spend – large numbers of transactions with trivial value
indefinitely), and one cannot rule out a breakthrough sooner. Consequently, at least one
of the ledgers we have looked at uses a cryptographic hash function that is claimed to be
Sybil / Sock Puppets – large number of “fake” members of the network acting in
“quantum-immune”, though that in itself is controversial as new cryptographic
collusion to overwhelm genuine ones. Only possible where the cost of being an active
functions require extensive analysis and testing to verify their safety.
member is low enough to support the number of fakes required (e.g. typically not with
Proof of Work, Proof of Stake).
As implied by the above paragraphs, public ledgers make extensive use of
Cryptography in solving the issues of identity, integrity, confidentiality, and non- Smart Contract Vulnerability – subject to the design and coding of the Smart
repudiation: the careful design and implementation of the ledgers’ use of and selection Contract / Distributed Applications and their interaction with the underlying language,
of cryptography is key to their security. libraries, virtual machine, and distributed facilities provided by the system, including
the effects of concurrency and timing of consensus, there may be vulnerabilities to be
exploited.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 16
Security
Consensus
DDoS Sybil Smart Open
Product Hijack Decentralisation Crypto Other
Resistance Resistance Contracts Source
Resistance

Bitcoin > 50% required

PoW and
Blocktime >> network latency minimises
maybe > 25% for >75% hashrate in 6 Broadly Robust & forking
transaction Basic script only Yes
[colluding] selfish miners immune proven March 2016 slowdown due to wallet
fees mitigate
miner spamming

Ethereum > 50% required >90% hashrate in 5 PoW and

10,000’s vulnerabilities identified in smart
Broadly contract code
maybe > 25% for miners transaction Extensive. Robust &
immune Yes June 2016 $60M DAO split theft / hard fork
[colluding] selfish top pool approaching fees mitigate Solidity EVM proven
2017 $150M DevOp199 contract kill
miner 50%
2017 $32M Parity wallet hack

Nem Mostly
EigenTrust++ for PoI
Unknown, PoI would Off-chain Dapps mainstream,
PoI mitigates PoI mitigates PoI mitigates Yes SHA3-512, Twisted Edwards Curve,
mitigate through API some unusual
Ed25519 sig
choices

EOS DPoS and

* Insufficient information for analysis at time
15/22 leader DPoS Yes
DPoS mitigates DPoS 22 leaders * Yes of writing
votes creates mitigates Choice of VM
vulnerability

IOTA Mitigated by
Vulnerable with
PoW
coordinator currently. Currently requires mitigates, but Own hash curl Hash had vulnerabilities, patched, claimed
current central Not yet No
Eventually requires central coordinator perhaps not p to be quantum resistant
coordinator
active network. sufficiently

HH Multiple Independent
> 33% Proxy Stake > 33% denial Proxy stake Yes Proven Open Deterministic aBFT algorithm looks like it
organisations to seed
required required mitigates Solidity EVM choices review brings some genuine advances
network

Byteball Currently witnesses Trusted

Requires subverting 12 witnesses Proven
largely under developer witnesses Simple declarative Yes
witnesses vulnerable choices
control mitigate

Nano Limited info in whitepaper

DPoS mitigates N/A Vulnerabilities PoS mitigates No * Yes * Insufficient information for analysis at time
of writing

0 1 2 3 4 5
PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 17
Programmability
The programmability of the public ledgers we are examining is a key feature in their utility as
enablers of distributed commerce. This takes three broad forms, though opinions and Basic API Smart Virtual
implementations vary in their approach: Contracts Global
Computer
approved external sources of information (Oracles)
Basic Scripting and execute their logic to yield results back onto the
The technologies which are purely a ledger. The contract contents are tied to evidence Bitcoin
cryptocurrency play generally include on the ledger so that their state and code is all
scripting functionality to satisfy more locked down and cannot be altered unilaterally.
complex payment scenarios, including Different ledger technologies afford different
such things as multi-signatory payment degrees of support for smart contracts directly Ethereum
and escrow accounts. However, they in the ledger itself versus essentially providing a
are not intended for general purpose toolkit that requires extension to provide full smart
computing and the languages are not contract capability.
normally Turing complete (capable of Nem
arbitrary computation).
Distributed Apps (DApps)
Smart Contracts DApps are a more generaliseddistributed computing
capability than smart contracts. Distributed EOS
Smart Contracts are an attempt to extend applications have existedfor decades and theInternet,
the core distributed ledger consensus Web, and smartphones have made them ubiquitous.
capability to encompass general Historically theyhave usedprivatelinks, mobile telcos,
commerce without (significant) human IOTA
or the Internet for communication, butin
intervention. The computer executable the context of distributed public ledgers we gain an
contracts are written in either a immutableandtrusted recordof transactions between
specialized Domain Specific Language these applications. DApps may bebuilt directly onto a Hedera
(DSL) for contract processing, which ledger product API, or may interact with the ledger Hashgraph
may not be Turing complete by design via smartcontracts. Theymay provide a human
so as to avoid DAO-like vulnerabilities, useable interface, perhaps via a website or mobile app.
or may be a general purpose computer DApps require less complex supporting facilities
language sitting on a specialized API from the ledger technology butwithcorrespondingly
ByteBall
for contract and blockchain processing. less trustand control.
The smart contracts for an application
encompass all the actions that may take In our analysis of the technologies under NANO
place and are intended to directly consideration, we will broadly classify them
reflect legal agreements and obligations according to whether they are principally
between organizations; they take inputs cryptocurrencies, whether they provide an API
from other events on the ledger or from providing for distributed applications, or whether
they provide full smart contract capability.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 18
Governance
Drawing comparisons on Governance (or absence of) as a characteristic of any Comparative Score
public network or cryptocurrency has a danger of being largely subjective. We
need to consider the purpose or role of governance for each network and the 10
“authority” or process that determines other elements such the token supply
and the subsequent effect on the perceived underlying value, the technology
roadmap and for instance service upgrades and network security.

Governance of the network is a fascinating arena to observe the tradeoffs from 8

totally decentralized to centralized governance models and what falls out and
how that affects usage and value of the cyrpto currency. Using Ethereum and
Bitcoin as well documented cases, the former is regarded as a benevolent
dictatorship which still managed to cause a fork (dilution in value) post the
6
DAO episode. Bitcoin on the other hand original thesis was a social state for
decentralized money.

Indeed most network governance has experienced disruption and in some

cases mutiny by the human element with stand offs and warring factions 4
over the technology roadmap within the developer community. Problems
also exist between the developer community and the mining communities.

The DAG generation have seemingly learned from our two trailblazers and
established Social Democracies or Governed public networks. The goals 2
have been to establish foundations with a view for governance however with
different levels of success to date.

Hedera Hashgraph are differentiating themselves from the pack by 0

investing such a high degree of effort in signing up a global spread of

ByteBall
Ethereum
Bitcoin

NANO
Nem

Hashgraph
IOTA
EOS

Hedera
International businesses to be independent council members with equal
voting rights on the governance of the network.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 17
Closing Market Considerations

Summary of comparisons - we found throughout this analysis that the technology is

evolving as one would expect, however some of the newer networks have put launching
a cryptocurrency as a priority over perhaps the more considered approach of the likes of
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Hashgraph to focus in parallel on establishing the governance.
It remains to be seen, but well governed enterprises are less likely to incur significant
disruptions to their operations and trust models which is significant to becoming future
leaders in this space.

Distributed ledgers are a new architectural combination of proven existing technologies

making progress into well established commercial and government sectors. Their
success is not dependent on creating brand new market places or consumer choices.
They are however technology platforms and to replace or redesign current systems
away from centralized databases is a work in progress which will take time and
significant resources to properly commercialize. However, because using public DLT
networks we can actually now build much more efficient distributed databases that
share information more “naturally’ we believe it is not a question of if but when
Distributed ledgers will where required become the “current” way of sharing common
data.

The winners, and we think there will be more than one, will provide trusted, fair, low-
cost, reliable, programmable, and scalable public environments that main street and
start ups alike can embrace with their core offerings.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 20
Technology Comparison Summary: Blockchains

Consensus Performance Fairness Security Programmabil Ecosystem Governance

ity

Proof of Work Throughput: Low ~5TPS Poor Robust & Proven Limited scripting. Very extensive Community:
Latency: Very high Primarily digital currency. developers and
Scalability: Very limited Block miner chooses Concerns of miner miners.
transactions and order centralisation No central authority.
Satoshi Roundtable
Bitcoin
Proof of Work Throughput: Low, ~20 TPS Poor Robust & Proven Full smart contracts Common ICO Community:
Plans to switch to Latency: High platform developers and
Proof of Stake Scalability: Very limited Block miner chooses Concerns of miner miners.
(CASPER / transactions and order centralisation
GHOST)
Smart Contract
Ethereum quality concerns

Proof of Importance Throughput: Medium, 100s Poor Appears broadly Basic Regional focus NEM Council of few
TPS good make decisions via
Catapult release Block miner chooses Basic operations via committee.
promises 1,000s TPS transactions and order Some unusual blockchain Mechanicsof the
Latency: Average choices but not API for custom Dapps, council governanceare
Scalability: limited known to be a outside blockchain. not public.
NEM problem

Delegated Proof of Stake Throughput: High Poor Potential DDoS Full smart contracts Extensive Protocol based
Latency: vulnerability in
No accountability
Scalability: Block miner chooses leaders
transactions and order Founders
Block.one not
committed to
providing
EOS governance.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 19
Technology Comparison Summary: DAGs

Consensus Performance Fairness Security Programmability Ecosystem Governance

Tangle - DAG Throughput: Med ~500TPS Transaction ordering Concerns with Smart Contracts on the Growing Foundation
Latency: not guaranteed centralisation of roadmap. consisting of
Minor Proof of Work for Scalability: Claimed very high Not time stamped technology and multinational
anti- spamming. No fee but minor PoW control with conglomerates,
“Coordinator” until required developer currently research institutions
network grows and others from
IOTA DDoS vulnerability industry.
DAG Throughput: V High, Transaction Strong choices in Smart Contracts (Solidity) Pre-launch Well documented
100,000s TPS timestamp ordering design Java API governance model
Asynchronous Byzantine Latency: Seconds API for Dapp Interaction Growing developer for decentralization
Fault Tolerance through Scalability: Claimed very Fees Unproven as public community and stabilization
Hedera virtual voting on gossip high through sharding network – prior to Aims to prevent
of gossip launch consolidation of
Hashgraph power.
DAG Throughput: Low ~20TPS Based on trusted Witnesses are Limited declarative smart No governance
Latency: Witness choices currently primarily contracts committee
12 Witness designated Scalability: under control of the established. Still a
nodes under developer developer centralized control
control model: Only
founding
development team
can change the
Byteball network protocol.
Block Lattice Throughput: High N/A: ordering only Appears to have None: Cryptocurrency Little information on
100s demonstrated 10k+ within individual DDoS vulnerabilities only Nano governance.
Delegated Proof of Stake claimed accounts Research implies
Latency: Very low that only the Nano
Scalability: Notionally No fees development team
unlimited can manage the
Nano network.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 20
Appendix – Building on DLT

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 23
DLT Implementation of Utility Services

With DLT (be it blockchain or DAG) being improved by many private and public Example utility services where DLT is being tested
initiatives, there is building promise that it could underpin the consolidation of
data utilized by nation states. National Identity – Estonia is a leading nation in the implementation of ‘e-identity’. Instead
of a citizen having their information stored in stand-alone databases, DLT could consolidate
Stand-alone and/or bespoke data implementation and management remain the under one account relevant information such as a person’s birth, marriage(s), and death. It
norm across current government services and general utilities that serve the public. may even be linked to any tax number and/or social security number. It could capture
However, as and when the capabilities of DLT provides a viable platform upon residency status, and issued passport(s) against an individual. Cer tainly, along with
which to consolidate such pools of data, then considerable operational benefits appropriate access control to such information, an individual could allow verification of their
would start to be realized. identity as and when appropriate. In the case of Estonia they allow e-identity to be utilized in
application for bank accounts.
DLT could become the technology of choice that refresh programs migrate to when
legacy systems reach end of life, or when operational efficiencies gained on DLT Government Services – Even if a national identity DLT were not set up, the provision of
compel an earlier decommissioning. government services such as local, state and national taxation, social security, land titles
registry, police/criminal records, voting and public healthcare provision could be consolidated
under DLTs. If each were in the end linked to an e-identity, then any nation would have a
much clearer view of exactly what services a citizen or foreign national would have consumed,
as well as their contributions to the nation.

Energy and Water Utilities – The management of energy and water resources remains a
topic of much discussion, especially in the westernized world. DLT as the database that
underpins the collection of individual residential or business consumption, could provide much
insight into better management of resources be it electricity, gas or water. Paired with internet
connected monitoring devices, DLT would serve to inform consumers directly of their
consumption, as well as allow utility companies and government regulators to better manage
supplies.

Notary and Conveyancing Services – The officiating of any documentation by a Notary could
be served by DLT. Though at this stage the face-to-face verification of one’s identity by the Notary
would need to continue, there is nothing to stop the notarizing be done as part of a digitized
process underpinned by a DLT. Equally, the rigor executed by solicitors on conveying property
titles could be readily underpinned by DLT. In both cases, as expanded upon in the following
section, the governing process that instructs on how participants transact with each other (and
hence record such transactions on the DLT), can be done via ‘Smart Contracts’.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 24
Building Service Layers
DLT is a foundation technology upon which services could be realised. As per prior The underlying DLT would hence record the transactions between parties as would be governed
use case examples, because of its capability to distribute data amongst participants by the smart contract.
and keep that data in synch and kept safe from those not participating, it brings
with it an architecture that many current services could use to realise operational Smart Contracts as a service enabler couldin future prove so versatile, that particular process
efficiencies and security, not readily gained via more traditional approaches. provisioning could in themselves become mainstream offerings. So in the example above, a company
could specialize in conveyancing processing on Smart Contracts and emerge as a market leader.
The validation of its value as a new technology is still ongoing. Even now, at almost
10 years on from Bitcoin’s launch, the investment in legacy systems, the imbedded Speed to Market and Crowd Co-operatives
processes that rely on them, and the ability of the technology to disintermediate
many services (encroaching on existing business models), has meant that adoption The advent of DLT and Smart Contracts is further evolution in the provisioning of technology that
is still very much at the exploratory ‘proof-of-concept’ phase. Albeit starting to gain could serve any business or service. They inherently should increase speed to market. Moreover,
momentum towards production. As mentioned earlier, nations such as Estonia have there is current
embraced blockchain as a fundamental building block for their e-identity system.
momentum in the establishment of crowd co-operatives that challenge traditional businesses
The shape of efforts is naturally starting to fall into domain specific applications that such as personal lending and investment. DLT and Smart Contracts, perhaps not unsurprisingly,
may be supported by the likes of Swirlds Hashgraph, IBM Fabric on Hyperledger are a perfect vehicle upon which these new entities could quickly establish operations and speed
and R3 Corda for permissioned enterprise services (R3 specifically targeting Finance their journey to market.
and Commerce). And those for example like Consensys on Ethereum and Hedera
Hashgraph, aim to provide decentralised services that could apply to any given The Road Ahead
service (be it permissioned or not). In either case, implementations are generally
built on a new set of languages called ‘Smart Contracts’. The Harvard Business Review [18] in an article about blockchain as a DLT highlighted that:
“Blockchain is not a ‘disruptive’ technology, which can attack a traditional business model
Smart Contracts with a lower-cost solution and overtake incumbent firms quickly. Blockchain is a foundational
technology. It has the potential to create new foundations for our economic and social systems.”
The processes that govern most (if not all) transactions between parties can be
formally digitized using ‘Smart Contracts’ as a service provisioning layer. That is, any There is still truth in DLT being able to disrupt industry, in as much as incumbent firms could
given agreement between parties could be programmed into a smart contract that in be usurped if they do not readily utilize its benefits before competitors or indeed crowd-centric
an exact way describes all the transactions between each party, and the governing pre cooperatives do.
and post conditions to each transaction. A smart contract would prescribe the step-
by-step execution of the process and what would be expected of each party with each That said, traditional businesses that have invested in proof of concepts should be well poised to
execution step. For instance, if a smart contract were written to govern the leverage their own efficiencies using the new technology.
conveyancing process, it would prescribe steps and obligations of each party (buyer,
seller, estate agent, mortgage provider) during pre-contract (before striking an DLT is foundational. There is no doubt that unless further advancements in technology is made
agreement on the sale price), at exchange of contracts, then right through to that would surpass DLT, the very fabric of how data can be utilized and secured, and thus how
settlement. services could be better formed, DLT is the most likely candidate onto which ageing and less
efficient legacy systems would give ground.

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 25
The Marketplace for Distributed
Ledger Technology

Because of Bitcoin, blockchain as a distributed ledger technology is nearing 10 years of Capital Markets
service. Mostwho have come to understand DLT, have begun to see that its application
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) by April 2018 have raised $US6.3Bn, which has surpassed the total
in the world may be as numerous as the use of databases that serve many users [9].
raised during 2017 [11]. Though some controversy surrounds ICOs (Regulators are still ramping
So, for any service that performs the sharing of information or enacting of transactions
up efforts to ensure clearer governance), no doubt that as cryptocurrency becomes more prevalent
between parties that do not know each other but need to trust each other’s actions [9],
in the public domain, the more ICOs would move to be an accepted form of capital raise.
DLT could act as an effective cryptographically safe mediating system. Thus, not only
could DLT largely remove the need for a central party (such as a bank), but it could also
introduce considerable operational savings by allowing all participants to leverage off Insurance
very difficult to compromise security measures protecting their data, as well as derive Insurance firms have started to look into DLT as a means to operationally streamline key
their various positions/stakes/transaction history without laborious and often processes such as Insurance Contract Lifecycle Management, Claims Management and KYC/
complicated back-office reconciliation practices. AML [12].
As such, DLT casts a wide net of application, across industries, businesses, and
government organisations. Beyond cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin etc., Government
here are some specific examples of DLT usage:
Electoral voting systems are a natural fit for DLT in as much as any polling centre
(online or physical) could be a node in a blockchain that directly inserts votes in near
Financial Services Clearing and Settlement real-time. Reconciliation and any recount would be a far less arduous task than paper
based methods currently employed [13]
More efficient settlements (ASX CHESS Replacement)[10] – considered to be the
first major market infrastructure project that aims to use blockchain based technology to
improve the efficiency of equity clearing andsettlement operations. The new system Urban Development
should also greatly reduce the overall reconciliationworks by market participants, as well Smart Cities – The provisioning of public and private services and mining of valuable data
as allow the ASX to possibly introduce new value added services that give participants collected from their interconnections could be greatly facilitated by DLT [14]. One key example
faster settlement options (better than the normal ‘T+2’ days of settlement) or options to being enhanced urban planning that is better in line with neighborhood needs (public transport,
use the cash or equity during the settlement cycle to generate further income. local business license approval as examples).

Healthcare
Patient Records – a service based on DLT could digitize, encrypt, and make available upon
permission of the patient, medical records to a new hospital or healthcare provider.[15]

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 26
References
[1] Ethereum Foundation, 2018 [9] Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand, “The Future of Blockchain:
(https://www.ethereum.org/foundation) Applications and Implications of Distributed Ledger Technology”, January 2017

[2] NEM Foundation, 2018 [10] Australian Financial Review, “ASXblockchain to go live at end of 2020”, 27 April 2018
(https://nem.io/about/foundation/) (https://www.afr.com/technology/asx-blockchain-to-go-live-at-end-of-
2020-20180427-h0zcgx)
[3] EOS.IO Technical White Paper v2, 16 March 2018
[11] CoinDesk, “$6.3 Billion: 2018 ICO Funding Has Passed 2017’s Total”, 19 April
(https://github.com/EOSIO/Documentation/blob/master/
2018 (https://www.coindesk.com/6-3-billion-2018-ico-funding-already-
TechnicalWhitePaper.md#governance)
outpaced-2017/)
[4] IOTA Foundation, 2018 [12] A Long Finance report prepared by Z/Yen Group, “Chain Reaction: How Blockchain
(https://www.iota.org/the-foundation/the-iota-foundation) Technology Might Transform Wholesale Insurance”, July 2016
[5] Hedera Hashgraph Council [13] PwC Australia, “Advantage Blockchain: Four ways blockchain will shake up
(https://www.hederahashgraph.com/council) business as usual”, 22 June 2017
[14] FICCI and PwC India, “Blockchain: The next innovation to make our cities smarter”,
[6] Hedera: A Governing Council & Public
2018
Hashgraph Network Whitepaper v1.1, 18 May 2018
(https://s3.amazonaws.com/hedera-hashgraph/hh- [15] PwC US article, “A look at Blockchain Technology”, 2017
whitepaper-v1.1-180518.pdf) [16] Forbes, “Explaining Directed Acylic Graph (DAG),
The Real Blockchain 3.0”, 22 January 2018
[7] Bitcoin Wednesday “Byteball founder Tony Churyumoff talks (https://www.forbes.com/sites/shermanlee/2018/01/22/explaining-
about his DAG-based ledger ‘Byteball”, February 2018 directed-acylic-graph-dag-the-real-blockchain-3-0/#3f016f88180b)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpCfucpwwQc)
[17] VISA Factsheet, September 2017
[8] Nano Organization (https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/corporate/media/visanet-
(https://nano.org/en) technology/aboutvisafactsheet.pdf)

[18] Harvard Business Review, “The Truth about Blockchain”, January 2017
(https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain)

PwC
Confidential information for the sole benefit and use of PwC’s client. 27
© 2018 PricewaterhouseCoopers. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the Australiamember firm, and may sometimes refer to the PwC
network. Each member firm is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. This content is for general
information purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors. Liability limited by a scheme
approved under Professional Standards Legislation. At PwC Australia our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems.
We’re a network of firms in 158 countries with more than 236,000people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory
and tax services. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at www.pwc.com.au.