These days, technology is climbing to new heights of success at an incredibly fast pace. One of the latest triumphs in this direction is the evolution of Blockchain technology. New technology has greatly affected the financial sector. In fact, it was originally developed for Bitcoin – a digital currency. But now, it finds its application in a number of other things as well.
Getting this far was probably easy. But you still need to know what Blockchain is?
Distributed database
Imagine a spreadsheet that is copied countless times over a computer network. Imagine now that a computer network is designed so cleverly that it regularly updates the spreadsheet itself. This is a broad overview of Blockchain. Blockchain stores information as a shared database. Moreover, this database is continuously updated.
This approach has its advantages. It does not allow database storage at any location. The records in it have a real public attribute and can be checked very easily. As there is no centralized version of the record, unauthorized users do not have the means to manipulate and corrupt data. The blockchain distributed database is hosted by millions of computers at the same time, making the data easily accessible to almost anyone on the virtual web.
To make the concept or technology clearer, it’s a good idea to discuss the analogy of Google Docs.
The Google Docs Analogy for Blockchain
After e-mail appears, the conventional way to share documents is to send a Microsoft Word document as an attachment to the recipient or recipients. Recipients will take their sweet time to go through it before sending back the revised copy. In this approach, you need to wait until you receive a backup to see the changes made to the document. This happens because the sender is prevented from making corrections until the recipient finishes editing and sends the document back. Modern databases do not allow two owners to access the same record at the same time. In this way, banks maintain the balance of their clients or account holders.
Unlike common practice, Google Docs allows both parties to access the same document at the same time. Moreover, it also allows you to view one version of the document for both at the same time. Just like a shared book, Google Docs also acts as a shared document. The distributed part becomes relevant only when the sharing involves multiple users. Blockchain technology is in a way an extension of this concept. However, it is important to emphasize here that Blockchain is not intended for document sharing. Instead, it is just an analogy, which will help to get a clear idea of this cutting-edge technology.
Prominent Blockchain features
Blockchain stores blocks of information across the network, which are identical. Based on this characteristic:
- Data or information cannot be controlled by any single entity.
- There can be no point of failure.
- The data is stored in a public network, which ensures absolute transparency of the entire procedure.
- The data stored in it cannot be damaged.
Demand for Blockchain developers
As mentioned earlier, Blockchain technology has a very high application in the world of finance and banking. According to the World Bank, more than $ 430 billion in money transfers were sent through it in 2015 alone. Thus, Blockchain developers have significant market demand.
Blockchain eliminates the payment of intermediaries in such money transactions. It was the invention of the GUI (Graphical User Interface), which made it easier for ordinary people to access computers in the form of desktops. Similarly, the wallet application is the most common GUI for Blockchain technology. Users use a wallet to buy things they want using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.