Blockchain technology explained in simple terms
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Blockchain technology explained in simple terms
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Content:
- Blockchain technology explained
- Blockchain Terminology: A Glossary for Beginners
- Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
- What is blockchain?
- What blockchain is in layman’s terms
- The Truth About Blockchain
- Blockchain Tutorial: Learn Blockchain Technology (Examples)
- All you need to know about blockchain, explained simply
- The Blockchain: What It Is and Why It Matters
Blockchain technology explained
Most likely, you have already heard about blockchain by now. Perhaps you did not pay much attention to it, considering it just another buzzword or a piece of IT jargon. But in fact blockchain is a breakthrough technology that is expected to alter most industries in the coming years. Whether you work in the financial world, healthcare or any other sector, you will probably face the consequences yourself soon enough.
Blockchain is a distributed database existing on multiple computers at the same time. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to the previous block, so they actually form a chain.
The database is not managed by any particular body; instead, everyone in the network gets a copy of the whole database.
Old blocks are preserved forever and new blocks are added to the ledger irreversibly, making it impossible to manipulate by faking documents, transactions and other information.
All blocks are encrypted in a special way, so everyone can have access to all the information but only a user who owns a special cryptographic key is able to add a new record to a particular chain.
As long as you remain the only person who knows the key, no one can manipulate your transactions. In addition, cryptography is used to guarantee synchronisation of copies of the blockchain on each computer or node in the network. You can think of blockchain as a digital medical record: every record is a block which has a label stating the date and time when the record was entered.
The medical history is extremely important for diagnosis and treatment purposes, so neither the doctor nor the patient should be able to modify the records already made. Nevertheless, the doctor owns a private key that allows him to make new records, and the patient owns a public key that allows him to access the records anytime.
This method makes the data both accessible and secure. So, blockchain is by definition independent, transparent, and secure.
The advantages of such a distributed ledger are obvious: being it cost and risk reduction, data security, or transactions transparency, companies from most industries can surely benefit from this new technology. This is specially handy against companies such as the bitcoin trading tool Bitcoin Rush , which is claimed by many to be a scam, due to the fact that blockchain can clearly tell if something is for real or not. But in an unknown person or group of people known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin EXANTE : Bitcoin —a simpler implementation of blockchain technology as a digital currency.
Bitcoin became one of the first digital currencies to use peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. Thanks to blockchain, it also became the first digital currency to solve the problem of double spending. More importantly, Bitcoin seems to be controlled by absolutely nobody and unable to be manipulated.
In turn, the growing popularity of Bitcoin attracted attention to its underlying technology. Now dozens of tech startups are rushing to produce the Next Big Thing based on blockchain, and more and more people working in finance and other sectors begin to recognise the practical benefits beyond the Bitcoin hype. Today, we are all pretty much used to sharing information through a decentralized interactive platform — the Internet.
But when it comes to sending money or other valuables we usually have to use the same old services provided by centralized financial institutions i. Sure, there are methods of making payments via the Internet the most obvious example is PayPal , but they usually require integration with a bank account or credit card, otherwise they can not really be used. Blockchain technology offers an attractive opportunity to get rid of this "extra link". If some part of those services will switch to using blockchain, this will certainly disrupt the industry as we know it, but at the same time it will significantly improve the efficiency of those services.
As transactions are completed directly between the parties with no intermediary and in digital form, settling a deal can be faster than ever. Add perfect transparency, traceability and security and you will understand what all the fuss is about. Moreover, blockchain can be used not only for sending digital money but as well for tracking physical goods in a supply chain, helping companies to monitor their suppliers in real time.
But let's go back to contracting. This particular feature can be very useful even outside the financial services sector. You already know that blockchain technology can also be used to store any type of digitalized information, including computer code.
With blockchain, you turn any contract into a program that will be executed only when both contracting parties enter their keys, thereby agreeing to a contract. The same program can track information from external data sources i.
This mechanism is called "smart contracts", and the areas of their possible application are almost infinite. You can use smart contracts for all sort of situations from financial derivatives to insurance premiums to property rentals to legal processes to crowdfunding.
Let's suppose you want to rent an apartment using smart contracts. You pay in cryptocurrency and, by a specified date, receive a digital entry key. The key starts working exactly on the specified date and becomes useless when the rental period is over, so the landlord is safe, too. The system can not be fooled as it is witnessed by thousands of people.
The same approach can be used to control the use of intellectual property, determining how many times a user can access, share, or copy the information.
It can also be used to create voting systems protected from falsifications, to help people access and receive information from diverse sources without censorship, and much more.
There are some challenges, of course, too, — the tech is still developing and its legal and regulatory status is uncertain. Other worries concern integration and universal adoption, as to be truly effective the platform would need to be implemented across all industries. But the possibilities is so promising there can be no doubt that blockchain will become an integral part of our daily life in the very near future, and now might be the perfect time to benefit on it.
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Blockchain Terminology: A Glossary for Beginners
Blockchain promises to solve this problem. The technology behind bitcoin, blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that records transactions safely, permanently, and very efficiently. For instance, while the transfer of a share of stock can now take up to a week, with blockchain it could happen in seconds. Blockchain could slash the cost of transactions and eliminate intermediaries like lawyers and bankers, and that could transform the economy. In this article the authors describe the path that blockchain is likely to follow and explain how firms should think about investments in it. The level of complexity—technological, regulatory, and social—will be unprecedented.
Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
Blockchain technology is most simply defined as a decentralized, distributed ledger that records the provenance of a digital asset. By inherent design, the data on a blockchain is unable to be modified, which makes it a legitimate disruptor for industries like payments, cybersecurity and healthcare. Our guide will walk you through what it is, how it's used and its history. Blockchain, sometimes referred to as Distributed Ledger Technology DLT , makes the history of any digital asset unalterable and transparent through the use of decentralization and cryptographic hashing. A simple analogy for understanding blockchain technology is a Google Doc. When we create a document and share it with a group of people, the document is distributed instead of copied or transferred. This creates a decentralized distribution chain that gives everyone access to the document at the same time. No one is locked out awaiting changes from another party, while all modifications to the doc are being recorded in real-time, making changes completely transparent.
What is blockchain?
A blockchain is a digital record of transactions. The name comes from its structure, in which individual records, called blocks, are linked together in single list, called a chain. Blockchains are used for recording transactions made with cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin , and have many other applications. Each transaction added to a blockchain is validated by multiple computers on the Internet.
What blockchain is in layman’s terms
When you think about blockchains, probably the first thing that comes to mind is Bitcoin or cryptos. But actually, the technology is extremely versatile and has potential far beyond cryptocurrencies. Blockchains have become popular over the past few years because they allow us to secure and verify all kinds of data in a decentralised network that cannot be altered. The idea has its roots as far back as , when two computer scientists, Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta, proposed a system to protect timestamps on documents from being interfered with. Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous Bitcoin inventor, then built on this system and referenced the two scientists in his Bitcoin whitepaper.
The Truth About Blockchain
Since blockchain technology is experiencing a significant boom and every second industry is eager to adopt it in various use cases, it is required for you, as an internet user, to know about some essential terminologies in this regard. Please note that this article mentions and explains several terms that are relevant to newbies and experts alike. However, to make it more friendly and meaningful, we will start with the most straightforward terms and then gradually explore the technical ones. Everything in the blockchain sphere revolves around the concept of blocks. Every record or data that the network produces is essentially stored inside a block and every time a record is created, there is a new block to contain it. In other words, you can also think of it as a container for holding the blockchain data. If you want to learn more about the concepts of a block, you can read about it on the official documentation page from ethereum.
Blockchain Tutorial: Learn Blockchain Technology (Examples)
Distributed Ledger Technologies DLT such as Blockchain are a concept known to many people as the technology behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. But their potential to redefine how we do business and also redesign our business structures remains unclear to many. DLT are decentralized, digitally managed ledgers.
All you need to know about blockchain, explained simply
RELATED VIDEO: Watch Crypto expert explain the Blockchain to CongressBlockchain is the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Bankrate explains. A blockchain is a digital, public ledger that records online transactions. Blockchain is the core technology for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
The Blockchain: What It Is and Why It Matters
Before we get started, make sure you've read Blockchain Explained: The Complete Guide Part 1 so that we're all on the same page. In today's post, we dive a little deeper into understanding the importance of blockchain technology in the business world and how it solves problems for the end user - me and you. Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology DLT that allows cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and other digitized information to move freely from one person to another without the involvement of a central party like a central bank. Blockchain technology utilizes computers or nodes on its network to verify a transaction simultaneously. Anyone with a computer can join the network and act as a transaction validator think bitcoin miners.
I have been amazed that, despite media coverage over the last few years, understanding the concept of blockchain technology still eludes many. While most people have heard of Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that utilizes the technology and first propelled knowledge of it into the mainstream, there is far more to this subject. Since , when it was first introduced, there has been rapidly increasing interest in the business case for blockchain.
Said in confidence.