These days, technology is scaling newer heights of success at an unbelievably fast pace. Among the latest triumphs in this direction is the evolution of the Blockchain technology. The new technology has greatly influenced the finance sector. Actually, it had been initially developed for Bitcoin – the digital currency. However now, it finds its application in a number of other things as well.
Coming across 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 on its own. This is a broad summary 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 in it possess genuine public attribute and will be verified very easily. As there is no centralised version of the records, unauthorised users have no methods to manipulate with and corrupt the info. The Blockchain distributed database is simultaneously hosted by millions of computers, making the data easy to get at to almost anyone over the virtual web.
To make the concept or the technology clearer, this is a good idea to go over the Google Docs analogy.
Google Docs analogy for Blockchain
After the advent of the eMail, the conventional method of sharing documents would be 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 approach, one must wait till receiving the return copy to start to see the changes designed to the document. This happens because the sender is locked out from making corrections till the recipient is done with the editing and sends the document back. Contemporary databases don’t allow two owners access exactly the same record concurrently. This is how banks maintain balances of their clients or account-holders.
In contrast to the set practice, Google docs allow both the parties to access exactly the same document at the same time. Moreover, it also allows to see an individual version of the document to both of these simultaneously. Just like 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 ways, 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 concerning this cutting-edge technology.
Salient Blockchain features
Blockchain stores blocks of information over the network, that are identical. By coincapcentral of the 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 in it cannot be corrupted.
Demand for Blockchain developers
As stated earlier, Blockchain technology includes a very high application in the wonderful world of finance and banking. Based on the World Bank, more than US$ 430 billion money transfers were sent through it only in 2015. Thus, Blockchain developers have significant demand available in the market.
The Blockchain eliminates the payoff of the middlemen in such monetary transactions. It had been the invention of the GUI (Graphical User Interface), which facilitated the normal man to access computers in form 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 need using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.