Introduction
In this series we shall learn about concepts of Blockchains and discuss and demonstrate applications of Artificial Intelligence for Blockchains.
This part of the tutorial discusses blockchain concepts and some examples of blockchains.
Blockchain Essentials
A blockchain is a distributed ledger system's network where all the peers agree on something using a distributed consensus mechanism.
A block in blockchain usually consists a hash of all the data represented by the block and a pointer to the hash of last block. Due to each block pointing to its previous block it forms a chain and hence the arrangement is called as blockchain.
Bitcoin Blockchain was the first widely used blockchain that has provided untampered security to all the financial transactions done using the currency - Bitcoin - that it manages.
Bitcoin being the first of it's kind experiment is still the most expensve currency over the internet and it's success is followed by many other projects which somehow try to solve problems associated with Bitcoin Blockchain. For example Etherium blockchain allows for Smart Contract and Steem Blockchain allows more transactions per second than that of Bitcoin Blockchain.
Definitions
Blockchain
A blockchain is a peer-to-peer network which timestamps records by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work.
Distributed Ledger System
A distributed ledger is a peer-to-peer network, which uses a defined consensus
mechanism to prevent modification of an ordered series of time-stamped records.
Hash Function
A hash function is an algorithm mapping or translation of one sequence of bits into
another, generally smaller, set known as hash-result such that an electronic record yields the same hash-result every time the algorithm is executed with the same electronic record as its input making it computationally infeasible to
- to derive or reconstruct the original electronic record from the hash result produced by the algorithm;
- that two electronic records can produce the same hash result using the
algorithm.
Blockchain Components
Blockchain Platform
Used interchangeably with the term distributed ledger system; examples - bitcoin, ethereum, multichain, sawtooth;
Blockchain Instance
A running implementation of blockchain including the block data and block headers;
Blockchain Nodes
The systems on which a blockchain instance is installed; nodes replicate, access, write to and maintain a single series of linked blocks of transactions; nodes for a single blockchain may be spread across several geographies and organizations
Blockchain Connector
A desktop or laptop used to connect to the blockchain node using ssh
External Interface
A blockchain explorer program
Blockchain Development Ecosystem
The technological ecosystem of the entities where the design, development, upgrade and maintenance of the blockchain takes place;
Blockchain User Ecosystem
The technological ecosystem of the end-users of the blockchain.
Blockchain Examples
| Blockchain | Explanation | Whitepaper |
|---|---|---|
| Steem.io | an open source platform that rewards the content authors and curators | Whitepaper |
| BigChainDB | an open source system that “starts with a big data distributed database and then adds blockchain characteristics — decentralized control, immutability and the transfer of digital assets” | Whitepaper |
| Chain Core | a blockchain platform for issuing and transferring financial assets on a permissioned blockchain infrastructure. | Whitepaper |
| Corda | a distributed ledger platform with pluggable consensus. | Whitepaper |
| Credits | a development framework for building permissioned distributed ledgers. | whitepaper |
| Domus Tower Blockchain | designed for regulated environments, benchmarked at ingesting over 1 million transactions per second. | Whitepaper |
| Elements Blockchain Platform | an open source protocol-level technology for extending the functionality of Bitcoin | Not Available |
| Eris:db | an open source, protocollevel technology for extending the functionality of Bitcoin. | Not Available |
| Ethereum | a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts on a custom built blockchain | Whitepaper |
| HydraChain | an Ethereum extension for creating Permissioned Distributed Ledgers for private and consortium chains. | Not Available |
| Hyperledger Fabric | which supports the use of one or more networks, each managing different Assets, Agreements and Transactions between different sets of Member nodes. | Whitepaper |
| Hyperledger Iroha | a “simple and modularized” distributed ledger system with emphasis on mobile application development. | Whitepaper |
| Hyperledger Sawtooth Lake | a modular blockchain suite in which transaction business logic is decoupled from the consensus layer. | Whitepaper |
| Multichain | an open-source blockchain platform, based on bitcoin’s blockchain, for multi-asset financial transactions. | Whitepaper |
| Openchain | an open source distributed ledger system for issuing and managing digital assets. | Not Available |
| Quorum | an open source distributed ledger and smart contract platform based on Ethereum. | Whitepaper |
| Stellar | an open-source, distributed payments infrastructure that provides RESTful HTTP API servers which connect to Stellar Core, the backbone of the Stellar network. | Whitepaper |
| Symbiont Assembly | a distributed ledger inspired by Apache Kafka | Whitepaper |
In the next part we shall discuss steem blockchain platform in context of concepts explained in this tutorial and the data we are going to use for this tutorial.
Stay tuned!
Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors