Beginners should go through this Introduction of Blockchain

These 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 Blockchain technology. The new technology has greatly influenced the finance sector. In fact, it was initially developed for Bitcoin - the digital currency. But now, it finds its application in a number of other things as well.

Coming across this far was probably easy. But, one is yet to know 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 overview 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 attributes and can be verified very easily. As there's no centralized version of the records, unauthorized users have no means to manipulate and corrupt the data. The Blockchain distributed database is simultaneously hosted by millions of computers, making the data easily accessible to almost anyone across the virtual web.

To make the concept or the technology clearer, it is a good idea to discuss the Google Docs analogy.

Google Docs analogy for Blockchain

After the advent of eMail, the conventional way of sharing documents is to send a Microsoft Word doc as attachment to a recipient or recipient. The recipients will take their sweet time to go through it before they send back the revised copy. In this approach, one needs to wait until receiving the return copy to see the changes made to the document. This happens because the sender is locked out from making corrections until the recipient is done with the editing and sends the document back. Contemporary databases do not allow two owners to access the same record at the same time. This is how banks maintain balances of their clients or account-holders.

In contrast to the set practice, Google docs allow both parties to access the same document at the same time. Moreover, it also allows viewing a single version of the document to both of them simultaneously. Just like a shared ledger, Google Docs also acts as a shared document. The distributed part only becomes relevant when sharing involves multiple users. The Blockchain technology is, in a way, an extension of this concept. However, it is important to point out here that the Blockchain is not meant to share documents. Rather, it is just an analogy, which will help to have a 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 this feature:

The data or information cannot be controlled by any single, particular entity.
There can't be any single failure point either.
The data is held in a public network, which ensures absolute transparency in the overall procedure.
The data stored in it cannot be corrupted.
Demand for Blockchain developers

The Blockchain eliminates the payoff of the middlemen in such monetary transactions. It was the invention of the GUI (Graphical User Interface), which facilitated the common man to access computers in the form of desktops. Similarly, the wallet application is the most common GUI for Blockchain technology. Users make use of the wallet to buy things they want using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.

Source: HOB

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