HMMM BLOCKCHAIN....!! As if a chain of blocks? LAME -.-
Its TRUE though :p
YEPPP!!! Blockchain is the chain of blocks that are linked together and can contain any kind of data. It can be thought of as a digital ledger that keeps record of all the data stored since it began to be used. So what's so special about it? Why people are simping over crypto so much? Why 9 out of every 10 startups are adopting blockchain technology? Or may be the 10th one too....^(0.0)^. Why do people trust it so much and how is it different from existing record keeping systems? Many people get hyped getting along with chaos caused by cryptocurrencies in recent years, but remain unaware about its underlying technology. WELL! here I'll try to give you a basic idea of this newbie (not so newbie) and try to answer all these questions....
Blockchain at its most basic level can be defined as a distributed digital ledger that keeps record of each and every event occurred in a secure and reliable fashion and can be traced back easily. All the data stored in the Blockchain is encrypted using advanced hashing algorithms. The integrity of the nodes and authenticity of the system is maintained by extensive key pair cryptography. Every node participating in the network owns this unique key pair which ensures its anonymity.
All the nodes maintain a separate blockchain of their own which is synced with other blockchains via a consensus that all the peers(nodes) agree to. This consensus algorithm is predefined in the Blockchain architecture and any change gets deployed by proper governance. In case of conflicts, forking of the chain might occur. Later we are gonna study more about forking and consensus algorithms using case studies...
Coming to the architecture of the Blockchain, it can be viewed as sequence of blocks connected end to end. For programmers, it can be thought of as a linked list. Every block contains some data, the block header and the hash of the previous block.
The very first block of the chain is referred to as the GENESIS block. The previous hash field of this block contains NULL for obvious reasons. A new block is added to the end of the chain and is broadcasted over the network. The other peers validate the block and add to their Blockchain. The process of creating a block is termed as mining. Various mining algorithms have been developed by blockchain architects based on the chosen consensus protocols about which we will be studying in further posts.
Blockchain provides a trustless environment throughout the network. No individual peer holds the power of governance. It is much more than just a record keeping ledger. We will look into the most popular implementations of Blockchain, i.e., Bitcoin and Ethereum and pick out the differences and use cases of both.
Right now its too much to ponder upon. RELAX!! I'll break it down into separate and a lot more descriptive modules. Its a long way to go. STAY TUNED AND KEEP READING...
Next we will list the features of Blockchain...
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