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 – the digital currency. But now, it finds its application in a number of other things.
Getting this far was probably easy. But, you still need to know what Blockchain is?
Distributed database
Imagine an electronic spreadsheet that is copied countless times over a computer network. Now imagine that a computer network is designed so intelligently that it regularly updates the table 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 the database to be stored in any location. Records in it have a real public attribute and can be verified very easily. As there is no centralized version of the record, unauthorized users have no means to manipulate the data and corrupt it. A blockchain distributed database is hosted by millions of computers simultaneously, making data readily available to almost anyone on the virtual web.
To make the concept or technology clearer, it’s a good idea to talk about the Google Docs analogy.
The Google Docs Analogy for Blockchain
Since the advent of e-mail, the conventional way to share documents has been to send a Microsoft Word document as an attachment to the recipient or recipients. Recipients will take their sweet time going through it before sending back a revised copy. In this approach, you have to wait until you receive the return copy 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 established practice, Google Docs allows both parties to access the same document at the same time. Moreover, it also allows viewing one version of the document for both at the same time. Just like a shared book, Google Docs also act 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 about this cutting-edge technology.
Blockchain Highlights
Blockchain stores blocks of information across the network, which are identical. Based on this feature:
- The data or information cannot be controlled by any single entity.
- There can be no single 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 US$430 billion in remittances were sent through it in 2015 alone. So, Blockchain developers have a significant demand in the market.
Blockchain eliminates the payment of intermediaries in such monetary transactions. It was the invention of the GUI (Graphical User Interface), which made it easier for the common man to access desktop computers. Similarly, a wallet application is the most common GUI for Blockchain technology. Users use the wallet to buy the things they want using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.