BLOCK CHAIN: The Samurai in the Technological World.

An Overview

In the recent technological trends, we all are hearing the term "BLOCKCHAIN" so much that it is generating curiosity among us to know more about this term.
So to make a deep dive into this topic, I have written this blog to help you understand what is this blockchain technology? Is there are any prerequisite in understanding the blockchain concept and why it is seeking the attention of the tech industry and even the government organisations for improvising their technological infrastructure and Is there are any drawbacks of this technology?

To answer all these questions, let's get a step by step procedure to understand this topic.

What is a BLOCK CHAIN?

As the name suggests Blockchain is a series or a chain of blocks that contains information.This method was originally described in 1991 by a team of researchers and was originally intended to timestamp digital documents in such a way that it is nearly impossible for anyone to reverse them or distort their content.In simple words it almost works like a notary system.
So here a question arises that What is this block in a blockchain?
In simple words, a block in a blockchain represents its data and value of its previous hash key with the help of which its hash key is generated and these hash keys are generated using various hashing algorithms like Secure Hash Algorithm 256 (SHA-256).
The first block of a blockchain is also known as the genesis block as it contains only data and on its basis,additional blocks are added to the blockchain.

This whole concept of blockchain is under the hood until it was used by Satoshi Nakamoto(presumed pseudonymous person) in 2009 to create the first ever digital cryptocurrency which is known to be BITCOIN.

Is there are any prerequisite to learn this technology?

As such, there are no prerequisites to learn this trending technology but if you are from a technological background, it will be helpful for you to understands its concepts easily but don't need to worry I have started from the basics.
So let's have a look at some of its core terms.

○ Cryptography

Cryptography is the concept of preventing the data or information from any third party to access it so that the information cannot be changed during the communication process.
Cryptography is made up of two words one is crypto which means HIDDEN and another one is graphy which means WRITING, so with the help of these two traits, our data is transferred securely.
I have explained this entire process of cryptography with the help of a diagram, so let's have a look at it.

○ Distributed Ledgers

This distributed ledger is made up of two words distributed and ledger. Here distributed means shared among different nodes or parties and ledger means database so distributed ledger are the databases that are shared across multiple sites or geographies locations and accessible by multiple people.
All transactions made in this system has the "Public witness" and has full transparency among all the people or nodes so that there is very little scope for any fraudulent activity. It is a decentralized system and if there is any change in the system it will be visible to all nodes instantly.
I have explained this distributed ledger system with the help of a diagram, so let's have a look at it.

Types of Blockchain:

There are mainly four types of blockchain which are used in different industries

1. Public Blockchain: This type of blockchain is open to all, non-restricted and anyone on the internet can go to the blockchain platform to become the authorized node of the blockchain network.
Public blockchains are mostly used in the mining of cryptocurrency and the most common public blockchains are Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchain.

2. Private Blockchain: This type of blockchain is permissioned and restrictive. Private blockchains are specifically used in an organisation or enterprises where only the authorized members can be part of the blockchain and can manipulate its resources.
Private blockchains have a more centralized system than public blockchains as most of the authorizations, permissions and accessibility are in the hands of the controlling organization. Eg: Hyperledger projects is the example of private blockchain.

3. Consortium Blockchain: This type of blockchain is used where more than one organization or firm are involved to maintain the whole blockchain network. Here the involved organisation can easily share the information in the network and can do mining altogether.
Consortium blockchains are mostly used by banks, government organizations, etc.

4. Hybrid Blockchain: This type of blockchain uses features of both private and public blockchain. The nodes in the network can decide which data to keep public and which data to keep private in the network. These features of a hybrid network enhance the security and transparency of the blockchain network.
Eg: Hybrid blockchain is Dragonchain.

As there are many advantages of this technology then there are some disadvantages also, so now with the last topic of the blog let's see some of the drawbacks of Blockchain.

1. The blockchain technology is very helpful but it is complex to understand the concepts and implement them in real world applications.

2. All the technocrats are saying that blockchain will soon replace the banking system and debit card or credit card. But when it comes to the speed of executing the transactions this technology is lag behind as VISA can perform 1000 transactions/sec whereas bitcoin can only perform 7-10 transactions/sec, so here it is a huge difference in the execution speed.

3. There is a huge wastage of resources while performing transactions and mining through the blockchain network.

4. The scope of hacking the blockchain network increases when more than 51% of the node are malicious so it is known as the 51% attack and can leak various crucial pieces of information.