Before trying to define what blockchain technology is, we need to know what a block is. A block is a grouping of information, marked with a timestamp and a digital fingerprint of the previous block (hash).
Therefore, we can say that blockchain technology is a system for storing information in blocks, linked together (forming a chain of blocks) and related to each other by a digital footprint (called a hash). In this way, if a piece of data in any block in the chain is modified, the hash of that block would no longer be related to those of the rest of the blocks.
Examples and applications of blockchain
Although the use of blockchain is related to the world of cryptocurrencies, the reality is that this technology has many other applications. For example, Ethereum, which we can say is like a decentralised supercomputer that executes all the applications (Smart Contracts) in all its nodes at the same time. There are more and more applications that use blockchain as storage, such as TrustOS from Telefonica Tech, and all public clouds such as AWS, AZURE, OCI or GCP have their blockchain solutions.
We can also add any application of the so-called Web3, although there is a protocol that does not use blockchain in an academic way but whose operation is very similar, IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is a distributed file storage system.
When was blockchain born?
Blockchain was born with Bitcoin, officially on 31 October 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto published his famous White Paper on the cryptography mailing list metzdowd.
What are the benefits of blockchain?
The main benefit is the difficulty of modifying the stored information.
What are the main characteristics of blockchain technology?
- Distributed transaction ledger
- In the case of public blockchains, the non-repudiation of transactions
- Use of P2P networks without a ‘centralised government’
What are smart contracts?
They are computer applications that allow actions to be carried out in an automated, self-executing way where the agreements between the users who make use of it are written in the code of that programme.
The code and the agreements contained in that code, the Smart contract, are stored in the blockchain and are executed automatically when the conditions predefined in the code are met without the need for intermediaries.
What is the relationship between bitcoin and blockchain?
Bitcoin was the first application to define and use blockchain technology.
Which industries are leading the adoption of blockchain technology?
The logistics industry applied to all existing industries, as the use of blockchain together with IoT offers
