The digital economy is evolving rapidly. Initially, the internet allowed the business world to promote products and services globally at a push of the button. Next, online shopping started a huge shift in shopping patterns and allowed the smallest of companies to sell their wares globally online. The next big buzz is now crypto currencies with bitcoin being the big buzzword. In essence, cutting out the middlemen and gatekeepers like banks and central authorities. The technology behind cryptocurrencies is called blockchain and below is a basic overview on how this technology works:
“A blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a link to a previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of data. A blockchain can serve as “an open, distributed ledger” that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which needs a collusion of the network majority.
The first distributed blockchain was conceptualized by an anonymous programmer or group of programmers, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, in 2008 and implemented the following year as a core component of the digital currency – bitcoin – where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions. The invention of the blockchain for bitcoin made it the first digital currency to solve the double spending problem without the use of a trusted authority or central server.”
There is no doubt that the blockchain technology is fast changing how we do business, not only for financial transactions, but for storing data and facilitating all types of transactions. We will keep you updated with regular posts on the use of this technology.
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