The concepts of Blockchain technology

By Wirba Brice Divine Ransinyuy. [email protected]

Nowadays, Blockchain has become a renowned word in both private and public institutions. Though blockchain was officially launched in January 2009 by Natoshi Sakamoto, it was already existing since 1991, as it was in another form, brought out by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta. It was a cryptographically secure block of chain. The idea behind this was that document timestamps should not be reversed or hacked. This is exactly how modern blockchain functions, as once it has been distributed and registered, it cannot be edited nor corrected. It is completely irreversible. Nakamoto came and improved the design, he made it to be unique. He made it in such a way that, not only it is unchangeable, but also that it does not require to be signed by a trusted party or a third party for it to become official.

A blockchain is a sequence of blocks which acts as a distributed decentralized public ledger that continues to grow its record list which are stored in the form of blocks as it holds a full list of transaction records. A block on its part is made up of the block header and a block body.

Present blockchain systems are separated into three types, public blockchain, private blockchain and consortium blockchain. In the public blockchain, all the records are made visible and public to all as everybody can take part in the consensus process that is you do not need a permit to join in this blockchain. Due to the fact that there are many parties, there is a general reliance or a third party. In private blockchain, it is seen a centralized network which is controlled by one person and it restricts the number of people who can work in this network. As for consortium blockchain, it is a combination of public blockchain and private blockchain as it is partially decentralized. The similarity that exist between all these various types of blockchain is that, verification of record takes place

Blockchain forms the protocol of which cryptocurrencies are built on like Bitcoin. Currencies like the swiss franc are regulated and verified by a central organ, it is often a bank, a financial institution or the government itself. Under the financial institution, a user’s data and currency are at the mercy of the government. If the user’s financial institution collapses, or they live in an unstable country with an unstable government, the value of the curreny may be at risk. By using blockchain technology, blockchain allows Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to operate without the need of a central unity. This reduces the risk of devaluating cryptocurrency and also eliminates many of the processing and transaction fees.