Navigating The Blockchain Ecosystem
We are in an information age where anyone interested in the news or social media trends must have come across the term "blockchain", the record-keeping technology behind the Bitcoin network. One must have heard how a lot of individuals or a few persons they’ve come across became millionaires via cryptocurrency (which is built on the blockchain) and their taste bud has been stimulated to taste of a replica of the same testimonies they heard.
Knowledge will be the link between anyone who desires to make it big in the cryptocurrency world and seeing that dream come to fruition. The idea of this article and subsequent ones are tailored at giving newbies or rookies to the crypto world a soft landing by explaining concepts are terminologies in simplicity.
Blockchain appears very complicated, and rightly so, but its core concepts are quite simple. A blockchain is a type of database. To understand blockchain, it is essential to first gain a good understanding of what a database is all about.
A database is an organized collection of structured information or data, typically stores electronically in a computer system. The information in databases is structured in a table format to allow for easier searching and filtering for specific information.
What is the difference between someone using a spreadsheet to store information rather than a database?
Spreadsheets are designed for one person, or a small group of people, to store and access limited amounts of information. In contrast, a database is designed to house significantly larger amounts of information that can be accessed, filtered, and manipulated quickly and easily by any number of users at once.
Large databases achieve this by housing data on servers that are made of powerful computers. These servers can sometimes be built using hundreds or thousands of computers in order to have the computational power and storage capacity necessary for many users to access the database simultaneously. While a spreadsheet or database may be accessible to any number of people, it is often owned by a business and managed by an appointed individual that has complete control over how it works and the data within it.
Moving forward, a blockchain is a software; a protocol for the secure transfer of unique instances of value such as money, properties, contracts, and identity credentials through the internet without a third-party or middle man in-between the two persons involved in the transaction.
What if the elimination of middlemen such as banks and government from the said transactions provides a platform where people are scammed of their hard-earned valuables? The blockchain is built to effectively take care of these fraudulent activities. It is a system that records information in a way that makes it impossible to change, hack or cheat the system.
A blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems In the blockchain. Each block in the chain holds several recorded transactions, and whenever a new transaction is carried out on the blockchain, a record of that transaction is added to every participant's ledger.
The decentralized database managed by multiple participants is known as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).
Blockchain is a type of DLT in which transactions are recorded with an immutable cryptographic signature called a hash.
Let’s understand what cryptography means.
Previously, the meaning of cryptography was just encryption and nothing more than that. In recent times, with the introduction of higher, hence complex mathematical theories and data science techniques, there has been a major shift and operations have evolved significantly. Modern cryptography is concerned with the following;
Authentication: This means that the sender and the recipient can confirm each other when transactions are made.
Integrity: Data sent cannot be changed hence it is secured and cannot be altered.
Confidentiality: Even if your information becomes public, no one would understand what it meant.
The implication of cryptography on the blockchain means that any alteration or change in the information in one block would be immediately apparent because it will not correspond with the same information in the other blocks in the chain. If a hacker wanted to corrupt the blockchain system, they would have to change every block in the chain, across all of the distributed versions of the chain.
Blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are constantly and continually growing as blocks are being added to the chain, which significantly adds to the security of the ledger.
Simple enough? Yes.
The idea of the blockchain is poised at transforming the financial system from what we've known over the years to a significantly different and more effective way of carrying out transactions such that the individual involved, from the comfort of his or her environment, would be able to carry out his or her business or personal transactions without the challenges generated by intermediaries.
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About John Gospel
I am a Cryptocurrency Freelancer with who uses Copywriting to add value to cryptocurency projects as well as offer Blockchain education to newbies to help them understand and benefit from the system.
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