Blockchain technology is the base of cryptocurrency and it is not limited just to currency. The same technology could be utilized everywhere in society to replace centralized networks and convert them to decentralized ones.
What is Blockchain technology?
Blockchains fall under the broader category of ‘distributed ledgers’. All blockchains are distributed ledgers, but you can have distributed ledgers that don’t have blocks of data chained together and broadcast to all participants.
Sometimes journalists and consultants inaccurately use the term ‘blockchain’ when they are describing non-blockchain distributed ledgers.
Blockchain technologies are the rules or standards for how a ledger is created and maintained. Different technologies have different rules for participation, different network rules, different specifications for how to create transactions, different methods of storing data, and different consensus mechanisms. When a network is created, the blockchain or ledger of the record is initially empty of transactions, just as a new physical leather-bound ledger is empty. Some example blockchain technologies are Bitcoin, Ethereum, NXT, Corda, Fabric, and Quorum.
Blockchains usually contain the following concepts:
1.A data store (database) that records changes in the data. Up to now, they have most commonly been financial transactions, but you can store and record changes to any kind of data in a blockchain.
2.Replication of the data stored across a number of systems in real-time. ‘Broadcast’ blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, ensure that all data is sent to all participants: everyone sees everything. Other technologies are more selective about where data is sent.
3.‘Peer-to-peer’ rather than client-server network architecture. Data may be ‘gossiped’ to neighbours rather than broadcast by a single coordinator acting as the golden source of data.
4.Cryptographic methods such as digital signatures to prove ownership and authenticity, and hashes for references and sometimes to manage write-access.
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