If we've to define Blockchain in one line the it might be like, " Blockchain is an online transaction record backed by cryptography." In this definition of Blockchain it might seem it's just a small thing but the Blockchain technology is one of the highly adopted technology by the whole world and it's still in its early stage of development.
In this article we're going to dive deeper into the Blockchain technology.
From the above definition we can conclude that it's a record of online transaction, then the question arises what type of online transactions does it include financial transactions or others too. So the answer is,
Money
The Movement Of Goods
Exchange of Information or Data
So these are the online transactions are recorded in Blockchain technology, this might be small in numbers the whole world of businesses, banks and even government works on these three types of transactions.
Let's Go Deeper
Now here we're going to modify our definition of Blockchain, " Blockchain is a set of records, bunched together by 'blocks' which are linked together by cryptography. For the understanding, cryptography is an art of encryption and decryption of information for maximising the security.
Blockchain keeps the record using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), DLT is actually a movement to transform internet away from centralised databases to the distributed model.
How DLT Works ?
In DLT,. every single record of online transactions is kept at many places at same time, because of this every time anything changes in blockchain, the whole network get notified about that change and network has to agree on the change which is referred as validating the transaction which you might know.
Because of this type of records keeping technology it is very hard to hack blockchain, as hacker has to change the record from multiple places at the same time with the permission of blockchain network which is near to impossible. Well then you'll say then why I read hacking news frequently, so let me clear that the news you read are about hacking of exchanges not the blockchain, exchanges are not blockchain.
What Makes Blockchain So Excited
There are multiple things which makes blockchain excited but the most important as well as the exciting thing about blockchain is that it is decentralised. Today the internet is centralised, that means the the data collected from the user while interacting with products or services is controlled by the one entity. There are countless service or product providers on internet which collect data and manipulate as they want. Google, Facebook, your bank, Netflix, etc are the examples.
Other than decentralisation of internet which makes Blockchain so excited, few of them are listed below :
Transparency : On public blockchain (there are private blockchains, we'll see that in some other article) anyone can see the transactions of service or goods, which makes it completely transparent system.
Controlled By Consensus : As we already seen it's decentralised technology, so there no one in control, none of the person or entity can change it. Which means that the things can only be changed by Consensus not by any individual entity.
Cuts The Middleman : As no one controls the blockchain individually so there's no chance of middleman which regularly makes the transactions more slower and charges the big percentage which makes it more costly.
Where Can Blockchain Be Used ?
Since Blockchain is still in early stage there are lots of areas of blockchain still required to be discovered, but even in such an early stage blockchain is used for many purposes like :
Governance : Blockchain can be used for this purpose to increase the transparency in public sector, which will help to solve the problems like corruption and help to grow not only specific countries but also help to pour some trust in democracy.
Supply Chain : As the main purpose of Blockchain is to track or keep the record which helps supply chain to easily monitor the shipment and track the process at every stage where it is required with the help of blockchain. Due to this there is tremendous increase in efficiency of supply chain which helps both business and consumers.
Open Sourcing Data : Today data is considered as the backbone of online businesses and it also helps offline businesses somehow. Due to the centralised system it is very hard as well as costly to get this data. As blockchain creates multiple open data marketplaces which solves this problem.
IoT (Internet Of Things) : Blockchain helps another emerging technology by connecting smart devices to each other and helps them to store and share economy.
This certainly is going to long so this is it for now, hope you enjoyed not bored by the article.
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