What is Blockchain? Introduction to Blockchain
We all have heard of Blockchain Technology somewhere, it’s a very trending tech for past years and specially after the raise of crypto currencies. So, let’s take a look at what a Blockchain is.
What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is a Decentralized, Distributed, Cryptographically secure, Immutable ledger and hence trusted ledger, which no single user controls and which can be inspected by anyone.
Confusing ha? okay let’s take a look at these terms in detail.
Ledger — is like a diary or sheet for recording entries or transactions. For e.g. Bob gives Alice 0.1 BTC on 1 Jan 2020, and 0.2 BTC on 2 Jan 2020 to John.
Decentralized — by decentralization we mean, removing any single, centralized authority over the system. It means our ledger is not controlled by any central authority (user or organization). Take example of your bank, bank is the centralized authority for accounts. In Blockchain there is no authority to control your funds or account, in fact you are the authority! Sounds good right?
Distributed — means our ledger is not stored on a single server (like on website hosting), rather it is stored on multiple servers (that are nodes of blockchain). It means each of blockchain’s node contains a copy of every transaction performed on blockchain.
Nodes are the computer systems that are the backbone of any Blockchain network. They support and power the blockchain and validate transactions to be added in blockchain’s ledger.
Cryptographically Secure — data stored in blockchain is secured with cryptographic hashes. Hashes are codes that are generated by performing some cryptographic algorithms and are not easy to crack their value, because it will take very very long time and with a huge computational cost.
Immutable — by this we mean, the data in blockchain ledger cant be altered because its cryptographically secured, and is distributed across multiple computer systems. Therefore no intrusion or data alteration can be done.
Blockchain is basically a chain of blocks. When we talk about these words “block” and “chain”, we are actually talking about digital information (the “block”) stored in a public database (the “chain”).
Blocks — is a container like data structure that cluster transactions to store in the blockchain. Block stores digital pieces of transactions like,
- Block index.
- Information about transactions like the date, time, data etc.
- Who is participating in transactions, like if A is sending some coins to B.
- Block information — to distinguish from other blocks.
- Previous block hash — reference of previous block, this is what makes the chain of blocks or information.
- Nonce — It is a counter that is used in the mining algorithm.
If you have an interest for Blockchain and Programming, you will love more videos on Programming Stack’s Youtube.
And the complete course on how to become a blockchain developer. That covers “Smart Contracts Development” (coding -> testing -> deploying) + “Decentralized Applications (dApps)” on Ethereum!
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