Blockchain has been in the news for quite some time and it’s something I find really interesting. At first, I was very confused, many people who were talking about the Blockchain, were actually talking about the cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin to be specific. It took me a while to understand that Blockchain and Bitcoin are not the same thing. Fortunately, I could timely figure it out but there are many people out there who don’t know that Blockchain is the technology behind the cryptocurrencies and that it can be used for other purposes like the registering of landowners.
About Blockchain, here is what I learned so far:
The Blockchain is a ledger of transactions that occur within an unlimited number of computers or blocks. The data uploaded is encrypted with the highest level of encryption. A time stamp is going to be attached to each transaction. The Blockchain is tied to a Peer to Peer network. It is a decentralized system with no central point where you could find all data at once. So if anyone tried to get data from the Blockchain it will be difficult to steal the data.
Blockchain security uses a public and a private key. The benefit is that personal information is not required reducing the risk of your personal information being stolen. Whatever recorded stays as is forever, it cannot be changed afterwards, at least not easily. If it is changed, which will probably require an approval first, everyone connected to the Blockchain will know of the change so it will not go unnoticed.
Blockchain can be Public, Private or Federated. Private Blockchains are valuable but not as secure as public. In the end, they allow organizations to have control over participants. Public Blockchain is apparently faster and cheaper. Estonia already uses Blockchain for land registry. In addition to land registry, the Blockchain technology can be used for contractual transactions, real estate, data storage, file management and payment transactions.
At this point, I learned that it is indeed not only about Bitcoin but so much more than that. When talking about Federated Blockchain, I learned that it is about having multiple authorities in charge of the Blockchain. And that it could consist of multiple trusted companies in the industry or country.
It could be that you already knew about this but know that there are countries where the concept of the Blockchain technology is fairly new, where people are skeptical or afraid to embrace it. The technology seems to be a very secure platform. At least this is my conclusion so far after attending a few sessions/lectures about Blockchain.
As I mentioned before, this is a new concept for me so it could be that I missed some important area, if so please feel free to add that to the conversation. I will be happy to learn more from you.
Thank you for taking some time to read my post.