These days, technology is scaling newer heights of success at an unbelievably fast pace. One of the latest triumphs in this direction is the evolution of the Blockchain technology. The brand new technology has greatly influenced the finance sector. In fact, it was initially developed for Bitcoin – the digital currency. But now, it finds its application in several 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, which is copied umpteen amount of times across some type of computer network. Now, imagine the computer network is designed so smartly that it regularly updates the spreadsheet alone. This is a broad summary of the Blockchain. Blockchain holds information as a shared database. Moreover, technical analysis gets reconciled continuously.
This approach has its benefits. It does not permit the database to be stored at any single location. The records inside 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 means 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 help 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 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 start to see the changes designed to the document. This is really because the sender is locked from making corrections till the recipient is done with the editing and sends the document back. Contemporary databases do not allow two owners access 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 parties to access exactly the same document simultaneously. Moreover, it also allows to see a single version of the document to both of them simultaneously. Just like a shared ledger, the Google Docs also acts as a shared document. The distributed part only becomes relevant once the sharing involves multiple users. The Blockchain technology is, in a way, an extension of this concept. However, you should point out here that the Blockchain isn’t meant to share documents. Rather, it 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 across 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 data is hold in a public network, which ensures absolute transparency in the entire procedure.
The data stored inside it cannot be corrupted.
Demand for Blockchain developers
As stated earlier, Blockchain technology has a very high application in the world of finance and banking. In line with the World Bank, a lot 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 in such monetary transactions. It had been the invention of the GUI (Graphical User Interface), which facilitated the normal man to gain access to computers in form of desktops. Similarly, the wallet application is the most common GUI for the Blockchain technology. Users make use of the wallet to buy things they need using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.