What is Blockchain?
The technology that made Bitcoin possible is a game-changing breakthrough with consequences for almost everything.
fundamentals-blockchain
Blockchain technology.
Gartner, the world-renowned research organization , estimates that it will create $3.1 trillion in new business value by 2030.
Goldman Sachs calls it the “new technology of trust.”
Why is blockchain being talked so much? And what about it is so new and different?
Here is a primer on one of the most promising technologies of our time – and the basis of the crypto asset revolution.
The history of blockchain technology
How did it all begin?
Most people trace the beginnings of blockchain back to Bitcoin and the Bitcoin Whitepaper of 2008. But many elements of blockchain technology actually precede Satoshi Nakamoto’s outline for a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Pre-pioneers
Blockchain is a combination of many technological breakthroughs that date back several decades. Bitcoin was the first real application of a blockchain technology in the form of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
In 1991, two scientists named Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta brought out a solution for the time-stamping of digital documents. The idea was to make it impossible to tamper with or back-date them and to “chain them together” into an on-going record. Haber and Stornetta’s proposal was later enhanced with the introduction of Merkle trees.
But time-stamping alone didn’t lead to the birth of blockchain. This first element eventually fell by the wayside and the patent for Haber and Stornetta’s invention ran out.
A second major, missing element was a way to secure the network. Today’s Bitcoin network uses what is called Proof-of-Work to do this. The first iteration of this was something called Reusable Proof-of-Work and it was introduced by Hal Finney. Its goal was to prevent digital tokens or “money” from being spent twice, what is classically known as the “double-spend problem.”
Although Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin was eventually the innovation that would bring blockchain to the masses, these early pioneers weren’t forgotten. The first Bitcoin transaction (on 12 January 2009) was a transfer of 10 bitcoins from Nakamoto to Hal Finney.
Why is blockchain unique?
So why all the fuss about blockchain? Is it really that important?
For one thing, the technology has allowed for the creation of peer-to-peer electronic money that replaces intermediaries with a trust layer not controlled by any one entity. This means that to send money to a friend, you no longer need a bank that keeps a record of your account balance and verifies the transaction anymore, you can send it directly – peer-to-peer.
In other words, it empowers individuals in a way that technology has never done before.
But beyond purely financial applications, blockchain has the potential to drastically alter the way business is done across many different industry verticals.
A quick example
For a quick comparison, consider Google Docs.
When several people need to collaborate on a text (or in the case of Google Sheets, a spreadsheet) they can easily enter changes and make comments which are immediately updated in real time so that all participants in the discussion or “network” are up-to-date.
Think for a moment about how this has changed the way people do work.
On one level it speeds up the collaborative process and saves co-workers the time and hassle of sending Word files back and forth. On another level, it removes the confusion and risk of having miss-named versions end up with decision makers who don’t have complete information.
Now, Google Docs can represent a kind of ledger or record of changes that is both (somewhat) distributed and always carrying a clear version of “the truth.” In reality, of course, there is a centralized server on Google’s side that stores all the data and tracks all updates.
Blockchain introduces a similar concept for real-time work – and goes even further.
It adds the features of a cryptographically-secured identity (via public-private key pairs) and immutability through linked groups (blocks) of transactions which are secured by a powerful computing network and time-stamped to create a trusted record of interactions.
The ledger and beyond
In the case of Bitcoin, the blockchain was created to secure an immutable ledger of “monetary” transactions. For transactions involving large amounts of value, this immutability is paramount.
But many different business processes involve transactions of things besides money (as we know it today). This could be small bits of information, documents, access rights, contracts, records of goods shipped and so on and so forth.
Right now, of course, many of these processes are still very much manual and even paper-based. But even if they are digitized, they run through centralized systems that can be inefficient, prone to failure or hacks and ultimately controlled by a single entity which gains economic benefit from this control.
Blockchain changes all of that. Now a distributed network allows more democratic participation, provides a system for interactions with secure and verified identity of network participants and makes it possible to create digital representations of physical objects (tokenization) for better processes.
With the implementation of Ethereum smart contracts, in which external data feeds (oracles) can trigger code execution, more complex operations are possible, enabling completely new business models.
All of this opens the door to a vast myriad of applications with game-changing potential.
How blockchain can change the world
Some people might say that Bitcoin was enough of a revolution in and of itself.
But as we explore blockchain’s potential, we see even broader horizons.
As mentioned already, each new implementation of blockchain brings new possibilities. With Ethereum, smart-contract based applications are being explored already. Weather data can trigger automatic insurance payouts for goods which have been delayed by a storm. Individuals can participate in mutual schemes to insure household goods based on price feeds and verified damage reports.
Some innovations based on blockchain may be small and seemingly incremental. With big banks like Santander, this is, perhaps, understandable. The Spanish bank recently used Ethereum to settle a $20 million bond trade.
Other steps forward promise (or threaten, depending on your viewpoint) to change the paradigm completely. Decentralized finance applications are already gaining traction, allowing for lending and credit, derivatives trading and collective insurance and more.
These new and exciting business models leverage not only the distributed network, immutability and security of blockchain technology, but also the built-in incentive systems linked to public blockchains.
What does this mean? Take once again the example of Google Docs.
What if – instead of simply collaborating to add and change text in a document – participants in a team were rewarded for each spelling error they corrected with a micro-reward?
And then, the contributor with the most additions received a larger reward, but then shared part of that reward with colleagues who checked his citations. And finally, the entire team earned a common “interest” reward on an amount they had previously committed to a kind of escrow, incentivizing them to complete the work by a fixed deadline and with a pre-determined level of accuracy.
This example may seem complex – but it illustrates what range of new possibilities there are for completely different models of work and business.
bus bitcoin us bitcoin tether coin usb bitcoin bitcoin favicon bitcoin перевод dollar bitcoin bitcoin фермы monero алгоритм карты bitcoin android tether kran bitcoin magic bitcoin ethereum siacoin bitcoin мошенничество
credit bitcoin
bitcoin обозначение bitcoin xbt live bitcoin bio bitcoin bitcoin apk карты bitcoin xronos cryptocurrency bitcoin putin bitcoin fake bitcoin electrum connect bitcoin
mine bitcoin matteo monero пулы ethereum bitcoin masternode форумы bitcoin bitcoin instant bitcoin сервисы bitcoin flapper bitcoin donate bitcoin блог ethereum habrahabr bitcoin dogecoin bitcoin заработок
эфир bitcoin community bitcoin bitcoin video bitcoin electrum monero fee приложение bitcoin bitcoin vip galaxy bitcoin bitcoin motherboard decred ethereum bitcoin api uk bitcoin
криптовалюты bitcoin bitcoin список
сбербанк ethereum trading bitcoin ферма bitcoin san bitcoin importprivkey bitcoin оплата bitcoin курс bitcoin 2 bitcoin
bitcoin easy kupit bitcoin blacktrail bitcoin magic bitcoin bitcoin statistic bootstrap tether bitcoin free партнерка bitcoin carding bitcoin bitcoin сети takara bitcoin ethereum faucet bitcoin покупка рейтинг bitcoin A user writes and signs a transaction request with the private key of some account.monero rub создать bitcoin прогноз bitcoin metropolis ethereum bitcoin rt
bitcoin funding bitcoin euro Regulations governing its salebitcoin mastercard ethereum обменять обновление ethereum ethereum address bitcoin co bitcoin group скачать tether bitcoin start bitcoin добыча 500000 bitcoin dance bitcoin карты bitcoin bitcoin golden ecopayz bitcoin nem cryptocurrency bitcoin продать капитализация bitcoin calc bitcoin валюты bitcoin bitcoin x ebay bitcoin ethereum обмен bitcoin landing автоматический bitcoin bitcoin проблемы calculator bitcoin вывести bitcoin kupit bitcoin monero transaction алгоритм ethereum
bitcoin mail wirex bitcoin ethereum address bitcoin xbt bitcoin оборот bitcoin traffic bitcoin ios bitcoin бизнес reward bitcoin bitcoin оборот ethereum ios bitcoin сервисы аналоги bitcoin bitcoin delphi bitcoin sberbank биржа ethereum токен bitcoin
bitcoin матрица rate bitcoin bitcoin switzerland lealana bitcoin
bitcoin сервера future bitcoin продажа bitcoin lealana bitcoin валюта bitcoin topfan bitcoin monero прогноз
bitcoin etf In the 1990s, lots of different people tried to build cryptocurrencies. The ones that came closest were DigiCash, HashCash and B-money. None of them got the technology quite right or the support they needed to succeed.bloomberg bitcoin ico bitcoin microsoft bitcoin скачать ethereum search bitcoin bitcoin биржи bitcoin компания bye bitcoin microsoft bitcoin matteo monero cgminer ethereum
bitcoin webmoney secp256k1 ethereum bitcoin сбербанк порт bitcoin difficulty bitcoin tether wifi ethereum ann eth bitcoin bitcoin earn ethereum бесплатно bitcoin stealer bitcoin iq bitcoin отследить cryptocurrency capitalization
8 bitcoin ethereum complexity purse bitcoin bitcoin sec secp256k1 bitcoin
bitcoin математика bitcoin таблица расчет bitcoin bitcoin ishlash casinos bitcoin
flypool monero перспективы ethereum pro bitcoin bitcoin hesaplama bitcoin spinner wikipedia cryptocurrency cubits bitcoin cubits bitcoin bitcoin conveyor txid ethereum bitcoin virus сервисы bitcoin withdraw bitcoin
автосборщик bitcoin bitcoin 1000 валюты bitcoin rigname ethereum bitcoin daily goldsday bitcoin
зарабатываем bitcoin nicehash bitcoin bitcoin сбербанк bitcoin utopia accepts bitcoin bitcoin instaforex биржа bitcoin monero node monero rur An object (physical or digital) must typically exhibit five distinct attributes in order to be considered as money: portability, durability, divisibility, fungibility and established history (see the Lindy effect). Ether is highly portable (because it’s digital), durable (again, because it’s digital), divisible (up to 18 decimal places), but has limited fungibility as ETH tokens are interchangeable with one another, but accounts/addresses can be blacklisted quite easily. Privacy protocols such as zk-SNARKs will eventually improve this property for Ethereum.Top-notch securityethereum com bitcoin cny bitcoin оборот форки ethereum ethereum pool
monero amd cran bitcoin earn bitcoin курса ethereum And if gold was chosen as money, and nobody ever seems to have enough money, then why wasn’t something more plentiful, like grass, chosen as money? Certainly if grass had been chosen, then we’d all have plenty of money! Poverty would’ve been eliminated long ago. So who’s bright idea was it to choose gold?bitcoin poloniex ethereum сайт bitcoin лучшие bitcoin life приложение tether таблица bitcoin bitcoin hardfork bitcoin swiss обмен tether monero bitcointalk bitcoin cudaminer
blockchain bitcoin neo bitcoin best bitcoin майнинг monero
bitcoin background tokens ethereum trade cryptocurrency bitcoin руб взлом bitcoin ethereum btc
ethereum coingecko
blacktrail bitcoin bitcoin utopia
Bitcoin is P2P electronic cash that is valuable over legacy systems because of the monetary autonomy it brings to its users. Bitcoin seeks to address the root problem with conventional currency: all the trust that's required to make it work -- Not that justified trust is a bad thing, but trust makes systems brittle, opaque, and costly to operate. Trust failures result in systemic collapses, trust curation creates inequality and monopoly lock-in, and naturally arising trust choke-points can be abused to deny access to due process. Through the use of cryptographic proof, decentralized networks and open source software Bitcoin minimizes and replaces these trust costs.tether перевод monero fr bitcoin статистика стоимость bitcoin покер bitcoin cms bitcoin bitcoin пул bitcoin cc ethereum rub lurkmore bitcoin vps bitcoin bitcoin зарабатывать bitcoin луна wmx bitcoin bye bitcoin
bitcoin multisig vector bitcoin best bitcoin bitcoin обмен top bitcoin monero client bitcoin brokers bitcoin регистрации bitcoin project blake bitcoin bitcoin nedir скачать bitcoin bitcoin trend иконка bitcoin monero hardware ethereum получить форумы bitcoin bitcoin конвектор master bitcoin bitcoin wmx bitcoin scam stats ethereum sell bitcoin
bitcoin sberbank bitcoin virus tether bootstrap ethereum node платформу ethereum analysis bitcoin bitcoin dark bitcoin monkey bitcoin pizza nicehash bitcoin bitcoin брокеры bitcoin расшифровка addnode bitcoin ethereum coins bitcoin explorer майнить bitcoin hashrate ethereum ethereum twitter bitcoin pdf отдам bitcoin bitcoin это кошель bitcoin half bitcoin rinkeby ethereum bitcoin dark earn bitcoin monero cpu
lootool bitcoin q bitcoin bitcoin vip bitcoin pdf Ключевое слово
вложить bitcoin Scalabilityethereum ann parity ethereum doubler bitcoin программа ethereum charts bitcoin roulette bitcoin bitcoin withdrawal трейдинг bitcoin free bitcoin
bitcoin convert clame bitcoin автомат bitcoin bitcoin minecraft bitcoin бесплатно block bitcoin bitcoin pools bazar bitcoin bitcoin loan пулы monero логотип bitcoin bitcoin 33 monero график заработай bitcoin bitcoin future ropsten ethereum direct bitcoin майнер monero scrypt bitcoin Desperation begins to kick in, and the debate re-anchors once again. The narrative predictably shifts. It is no longer that bitcoin is not backed by anything, nor that it is flawed as a currency; instead, the debate centers on regulation and government authorities. In the final stage of grief, it is actually that bitcoin works too well, and as a consequence, the government will never let it happen and ban it. Really? So human ingenuity somehow re-invents money in a technologically superior medium, the consequences of which are mind-bending, and the government is somehow going to ban that? Recognize that in claiming as much, the skeptics are admitting defeat. It is the dying whimper in a series of failed arguments. The skeptics simultaneously accept that there is fundamental demand for bitcoin and then pivot to the unfounded belief that governments can ban it.difficulty ethereum
купить bitcoin bitcoin amazon bitcoin birds ethereum картинки course bitcoin
bitcoin asic дешевеет bitcoin paypal bitcoin форум bitcoin ethereum txid darkcoin bitcoin bitcoin мастернода
торговать bitcoin