adminThese days, technology is scaling newer heights of success at an unbelievably fast pace. One of the latest triumphs in this direction is the evolution of the Blockchain technology. The new technology has greatly influenced the finance sector. Actually, it had been initially developed for Bitcoin – the digital currency. But now, it finds its application in several other things as well.
Coming across this far was probably easy. But, one is yet to learn what is Blockchain?
A distributed database
Imagine an electronic spreadsheet, which is copied umpteen number of times across a computer network. Now, imagine the computer network is designed so smartly that it regularly updates the spreadsheet on its own. This is a broad summary of the Blockchain. Blockchain holds information as a shared database. Moreover, this database gets reconciled continuously.
This approach has its own benefits. It does not allow the database to be stored at any single location. The records in it possess genuine public attribute and may be verified very easily. As there is no centralised version of the records, unauthorised users have no means to manipulate with and corrupt the info. The Blockchain distributed database is simultaneously hosted by an incredible number of computers, making the data easily accessible to almost anyone across the virtual web.
To make the concept or the technology clearer, this is a good idea to go over the Google Docs analogy.
Google Docs analogy for Blockchain
After the advent of the e-mail, the conventional way of sharing documents is to send a Microsoft Word doc as attachment to a recipient or recipients. The recipients will take their sweet time to proceed through it, before they send back the revised copy. In this process, one must wait till receiving the return copy to start to see the changes made to the document. This is really because the sender is locked from making corrections till the recipient is done with the editing and sends the document back. Contemporary databases don’t allow two owners access the same record as well. This is one way banks maintain balances of these clients or account-holders.
As opposed to the set practice, Google docs allow both the parties to access the same document at the same time. Moreover, it also allows to view a single version of the document to both of them simultaneously. Just like a shared ledger, the Google Docs also acts as a shared document. The distributed part only becomes relevant once the sharing involves multiple users. The Blockchain technology is, in a way, an extension of this concept. However, it is very important explain here that the Blockchain is not meant to share documents. Rather, it is just an analogy, which can only help to have clear-cut idea about this cutting-edge technology.
Salient Blockchain features
Blockchain stores blocks of information across the network, that are identical. By virtue of the feature:
The data or information cannot be controlled by any single, particular entity.
There can’t be no single failure point either.
The info is hold in a public network, which ensures absolute transparency in the entire procedure.
The data stored inside it cannot be corrupted.
coincapcentral for Blockchain developers
As mentioned earlier, Blockchain technology includes a very high application in the wonderful world of finance and banking. According to the World Bank, more than US$ 430 billion money transfers were sent through it only in 2015. Thus, Blockchain developers have significant demand on the market.
The Blockchain eliminates the payoff of the middlemen such monetary transactions. It had been the invention of the GUI (Graphical User Interface), which facilitated the common man to gain access to computers in type of desktops. Similarly, the wallet application is the most typical GUI for the Blockchain technology. Users utilize the wallet to buy things they need using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.