These days, technology is scaling newer heights of success at an unbelievably fast pace. One of the latest triumphs in this direction may be the evolution of the Blockchain technology. The new technology has greatly influenced the finance sector. Actually, it was 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 learn what is Blockchain?
A distributed database
Imagine an electronic spreadsheet, that is copied umpteen number of times across a computer network. Now, imagine the computer network is designed 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 benefits. It does not permit the database to be stored at any single location. The records in it possess genuine public attribute and will be verified very easily. As there is no centralised version of the records, unauthorised users haven’t any methods to manipulate with and corrupt the data. The Blockchain distributed database is simultaneously hosted by millions of computers, making the data easily accessible to almost anyone across the virtual web.
To make the concept or the technology clearer, it is just 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 need 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 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 concurrently. This is how banks maintain balances of their clients or account-holders.
As opposed to coincapcentral , Google docs allow both the parties to access exactly the same document simultaneously. Moreover, it also allows to see an individual version of the document to both of these simultaneously. As being a shared ledger, the Google Docs also acts as a shared document. The distributed part only becomes relevant when the sharing involves multiple users. The Blockchain technology is, in a way, an extension of the concept. However, it is important to explain here that the Blockchain is not designed to share documents. Rather, it really is just an analogy, which can only help to have clear-cut idea relating to this cutting-edge technology.
Salient Blockchain features
Blockchain stores blocks of information over the network, which are identical. By virtue of the feature:
The data or information can’t 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 overall procedure.
The data stored in it cannot be corrupted.
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 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 such monetary transactions. It was the invention of the GUI (Graphical INTERFACE), which facilitated the common man to access computers in type of desktops. Similarly, the wallet application is the most typical GUI for the Blockchain technology. Users make use of the wallet to buy things they want using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.