The above is what you see almost everywhere on the internet when you type the world blockchain on any search engine, but it will interest you that as transformative, innovative, important and game changing of the technology not many really have a sound knowledge or understanding of how it works. This article seeks to be a bridge between blockchain illiteracy and literacy.
A sound foundation in understanding the basics of blockchain will give the reader a full grasp of the technology and the numerous opportunities for inventions it promises.
What is Blockchain Technology?
Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger technology which means it's a special type of database where the data, information and records on the database system are spread sequentially accross the network or multiple sites.
The blockchain can also be simply defined as a consensus, digital, distributed, decentralised public ledger. Taking it further so you could grasp it properly, a ledger is simply a record book where transaction entries either credit or debit are tabulated.
This will lead us to conclude that
The blockchain is a giant spreadsheet of transactions with the extra feature of being digital, consensual, distributed and decentralised.
General knowledge of how it works
Bitcoin which is considered the mother of all cryptocurrency is a product of blockchain technology utilising the tech as it basic structure on which it operates. This explains to us that cryptocurrencies are only possible because of blockchain technology. Consider blockchain as the engine that runs the cryptocurrency network.
Blockchain from the word in itself tells alot on its meaning, taking the two words apart to create separate words we have block and chain which would be a guide to understanding how the technology works.
Reverse engineering the word "Blockchain" to become "chain of blocks" tells the full story of how the technology distinguishes itself from conventional database system.
Blocks: The block in the blockchain are an integral part of the tech as it contains relevant information such as
Note: Every blockchain has a particular size limit for each of their blocks and as such only a finite amount of information would exist in a block.
Chains: This just refers to the steady continual increase in records of the blocks using their hashes to create a unique database.
With the above properly stated, one must then understand Hash and how integral their connection is in the blockchain technology.
Hashes are cryptographic codes created by special algorithmic protocols, hash are the unique block fingerprints or signature created by mathematical equations from the set of inputs into each block. They are unique to each block and thus can be seen as a block identifier or identity and they link one block to another to ensure the security and authenticity of the chain.
The blockchain as it name implies is series of blocks chained together by their hashes.
In more details, here is a detailed scheme of operation that occurs in a basic blockchain network
Brief history and Features of Blockchain
A simple understanding of blockchain technology will give you the insight of the simple goal to wit it was created which is to allow digital information to be securely recorded and distributed, but not edited thus rendering it tamper proof.
Blockchain technology was first outlined by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in 1991 in an academic paper where their work focused on timestamping documents, a popular use case for blockchain technology, even today. By storing hash values in a timestamped block on the blockchain, one can prove that a document existed at a certain time in a certain version.
Although this is not the acclaimed implementation of blockchain, in 1994 we see yet another individual make a valuable contribution to the Blockchain word, in 1994 Nick Szabo a renowned Cryptographer and Computer Scientists known for his pioneering work in Smart contracts as well as the designing of BitGold in the 90s which many acclaimed to have influenced the creation of Bitcoin in 2008.
Fun Facts There are many who still think Nick Szabo as the Pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto 😁😁😁, how true that is, I can't say. Not until 2008 did the Bitcoin white paper was released by Satoshi Nakamoto the Pseudonymous Creator and in Jan 2009 was the genesis block of Bitcoin mined and the network went live, did we see an actual use case of blockchain technology, and ever since then, we have seen blockchain technology metamorphosed into varying arms of sector aside the financial of which it was originally created for as an electronic digital peer to peer cash system.
Going forward we see blockchain technology been used in almost all facets of life, creating innovative solutions to problems that have existed since mankind, no wonder it is called the revolutionary technology.
We can now bodly say that what the internet did for information, blockchain is doing it for money and also the internet itself.
Features of Blockchain
Blockchain is more than just a database or a giant spreadsheet of transactions, it is special, and there exist those special features that gives it is speciality, and some of them include:-
Use cases for blockchain technology
There is a whole new world out there in blockchain technology and you can plug into it.
References
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