What is Blockchain, Examples of Blockchain, Blockchain Security
Blockchain, Examples of Blockchain and Blockchain Security
There’s a new technology that has the capacity to revolutionize how you, businesses, technologies and the world interact!You’ve probably heard of it: it’s called Blockchain! But what is it? How does it work? How does it affect you?
Blockchain is, is a combination of technologies that have existed for a long time.
They’re simply combined in a new and creative way to give us an amazing new platform on which we can start to build solutions. Blockchains are often referred to as digital decentralized ledgers.
Concept of Blockchain
Hearing the word “Blockchain” is comparable to hearing the word “internet” in the early 80s. Like something that wasn’t going to impact your daily life.But right now, more than 30 years later.
We can think about how the Internet has transformed businesses, commerce, communication, entertainment, collaboration and sharing of resources.
And that’s not even touching on how the Internet has affected you.We all carry the Internet in our pocket.
We can transfer money at the touch of a button, check the weather, get directions, and even have food delivered to our door.
The next technology to have that kind of impact isn’t some of the buzzwords you hear. It’s not big data. It’s not artificial intelligence. It’s not machine learning.
It’s not even social media. It’s BLOCKCHAIN!! Now, let’s highlights the vast promise Blockchain has for every business, every society, and for everyone reading this post today.
Examples of Blockchain Highlighted
And let’s begin with an example we are all familiar with. When you attach a file, a Word document, an Excel sheet, a PDF file to an email, you aren’t sending an original copy.
You are actually sending the recipient a copy, and that’s a great way to move information around.
But it’s not so great when it comes to things like money, stocks and bonds, music, loyalty points, intellectual property, tickets to a game or concert.
Because, sending a copy is suddenly a very bad idea. Let’s look at an example. If I send you tickets to a concert, it’s important that I don’t send you a copy. You now own the original asset and I can no longer use or sell those tickets.
Similarly, if I send you $200, it’s important that I still don’t own the $200, or have the ability to send it to anyone else. Both of these examples illustrate a double spend problem, and those can be eliminated with Blockchain.
Also Read: What is Internet of Everything? IOE
So now, every kind of asset, from tickets, to money, to music, can be stored, moved, exchanged, and transacted without an intermediary. People everywhere can transact peer-to-peer and trust each other by using collaboration and cryptography.
How did we get here, to this place of trust and collaboration? It began when Satoshi Nakamoto, whose true identity is still unknown, released a white paper in 2008, introducing a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash known as Bitcoin.
It is here that Blockchain technology made its debut. Even today people believed that Bitcoin and blockchain are one and the same. But they are not! Bitcoin, is another alternative currency, that utilize Blockchain technology.
One important difference between Bitcoin and Blockchain is that, Bitcoin is only one use case for Blockchain. So I can say confidently say that, Bitcoin is a subset of blockchain.
Blockchain allows people to exchange assets and perform transactions without a third party. Imagine a world where you don’t need intermediaries.
While traditionally we have needed central authorities to trust one another and fulfill contracts, Blockchain makes it possible to have our peers guarantee that for us. But how?
Assets, like we’ve discussed, are no longer stored in a central place, but distributed across a global ledger, usingthe highest level of cryptography.
When a transaction is conducted, it’s posted across tens of thousands of computers around the globe.
Also Read: Quora Hacked-Over 100 million User Accounts Compromised
These transactions are recorded as blocks. Let’s imagine a sheet of paper that has 30 lines. When a sheet is filled up with 30 transactions, the block is validated via group concensus.
Once the page has been validated, it is added to a stack of previously validated sheets. Each sheet on the stack can be assumed to be trustworthy because, once a sheet is validated, it can’t be changed.
Because at this point, all the sheets are linked together. And to link our sheets together, we embed information from the previous sheet of paper into the new, recently validated sheet.
In Blockchain, our sheet of paper is equal to a block. The act of embedding a previous block of information into the current block of information is called chaining, hence, the name Blockchain.
Blockchain SECURITY
In order to compromise or hack a Blockchain network, someone would have to gain control of the majority of computers in that network.This is extremely difficult to do.
There is no longer a single point of failure, and this is what makes Blockchain infinitely more secure than what we have today.
Blockchain Smart Contracts
Blockchain isn’t just for assets, though. It extends to contracts. These are called Smart Contracts.
A smart contract self-executes and handles enforcement, the management, and performance of agreements between people.
Examples of smart contracts include insurance policies, copyrighted content, escrow and lending, wills, and trusts. Smart contracts will revolutionize how we do business.
There are so many possibilities with blockchain; not just in the now, but with things we haven’t begun to think about yet.
