by 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 the Blockchain technology. The new technology has greatly influenced the finance sector. In fact, it had been initially developed for Bitcoin – the digital currency. However now, it finds its application in a number of other things as well.
Sounding this far was probably easy. But, one is yet to know what is Blockchain?
A distributed database
Imagine an electronic spreadsheet, that is copied umpteen number of times across some type of computer network. Now, imagine the computer network was created so smartly that it regularly updates the spreadsheet alone. 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 inside it possess genuine public attribute and will be verified very easily. As there’s no centralised version of the records, unauthorised users haven’t any means to manipulate with and corrupt the info. The Blockchain distributed database is simultaneously hosted by an incredible number of computers, making the data easily accessible to almost anyone across the virtual web.
To help make Bitcoin Revolution or the technology clearer, this can be a good idea to go over the Google Docs analogy.
Google Docs analogy for Blockchain
After the advent of the eMail, the conventional way of sharing documents is to send a Microsoft Word doc as attachment to a recipient or recipients. The recipients will take their sweet time to go through it, before they send back the revised copy. In this process, one needs to wait till receiving the return copy to see the changes made to the document. This happens because the sender is locked out from making corrections till the recipient is performed with the editing and sends the document back. Contemporary databases do not allow two owners access exactly the same record simultaneously. This is how banks maintain balances of these clients or account-holders.
In contrast to the set practice, Google docs allow both the parties to access exactly the same document simultaneously. Moreover, it also allows to see a single version of the document to both of them simultaneously. Just like a shared ledger, the Google Docs also acts as a shared document. The distributed part only becomes relevant once the sharing involves multiple users. The Blockchain technology is, in ways, an extension of this concept. However, it is important to point out here that the Blockchain isn’t designed to share documents. Rather, it really is just an analogy, which can only help to have clear-cut idea concerning 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 no failure point either.
The info is hold in a public network, which ensures absolute transparency in the entire procedure.
The data stored inside it cannot be corrupted.
Demand for Blockchain developers
As mentioned earlier, Blockchain technology includes a very high application in the world of finance and banking. Based on the World Bank, a lot more than US$ 430 billion money transfers were sent through it only in 2015. Thus, Blockchain developers have significant demand in the market.
The Blockchain eliminates the payoff of the middlemen in such monetary transactions. It was the invention of the GUI (Graphical INTERFACE), which facilitated the normal man to gain access to computers in form of desktops. Similarly, the wallet application may be the most common GUI for the Blockchain technology. Users make use of the wallet to buy things they want using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
