What exactly a Blockchain Technology?

These days, I'm looking at Blockchain Technology. From this article, I will emphasize those are the things I found from my research.

Why am I interested in learning more about blockchain technology?

At present, there is a trend in cryptocurrency in Sri Lanka. I had curious about the technology behind cryptocurrency. When I got into cryptocurrency, I found a technology called Blockchain. The primary technology for cryptocurrency was the Blockchain. So I want to learn about Blockchain Technology. And there's a tendency for blockchain technology in computer science. Most tech seekers say most probably blockchain will be a good career path in the future.

When we talk about Blockchain, most people think blockchain is a technology which used only in cryptocurrency. But it is not true. Blockchain is used in various industries such as Banking and Payments, Insurance, Voting, Forecasting, Crowdfunding, Real Estate ... etc.

What is a Blockchain?

This explanation I got from the euromoney.com site

"A blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain. Each block in the chain contains a number of transactions, and every time a new transaction occurs on the blockchain, a record of that transaction is added to every participant’s ledger. The decentralized database managed by multiple participants is known as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)."

Let's get an example to understand this.

Let's think I am a supplier which supplies digital paintings to my clients. Let's assume I am sending a letter with the digital painting to get paid from him.

From : Supplier(A)
To : Client(B)

You ove me 100$ for the digital painting

Place:
Date:
Signature:
        

Next, I place these two in a package and give them to a courier company to deliver the item to my customer. The courier company receives the package and delivers it to the customer through their riders.

Now I have a question.

Question : How do I know if(and when) the package has been delivered?
Answer : I can ask it from client.

Question : What if I don't trust what my client says?
Answer : Ask from the courier company

Question : I don't want an intermediary. What are the other options available?
Answer : I can ask directly from the courier rider.
        

There have many courier riders in the town. So which courier rider should I ask?

We can get a good solution by creating a blockchain to deal with this situation.

Solution

• The courier riders compete to decide who will make the delivery.

Now, there is no central authority, such as a courier company. So all riders?assigning to one game and the winning rider?will make the delivery.

In this situation, I place the digital painting and the letter into a package and give them to a winning rider(C). The rider will deliver the item to my customer. So now I can get information without asking the courier company (Peer-to-Peer).

• When the package is delivered to the client, rider(C) will write the data of the delivery on his registry.

In this step, the rider will log the details about the transaction (log on the ledger).

• Then the rider makes a copy of his registry and gives that to all the other riders.

Now all the riders have all the details of transactions (Distributed system). So now I can ask any rider about the delivery ??.

So we've addressed the issue of making sure that the information, whether it's delivered or not, is secure. There's no need to ask the client. I don't need to ask the courier company. Now I can ask any rider about the delivery

So now we know about the delivery of the package. So now the client denied it by saying not having received the letter. But now have an additional complication about the letter.

What happens if the client changes my original letter where I was asking for 100$?

The client can behave in a malicious way and altered the information. He can erase 100$ and put 80$.

From : Supplier(A)
To : Client(B)

You ove me 80$ for the digital painting

Place:
Date:
Signature:
        

So how to resolve this issue using blockchain?

We can assign the original letter with a special hash code(hashing). And this code is unique to that letter.

So Original Letter:

From : Supplier(A)
To : Client(B)

You ove me 100$ for the digital painting

Place:
Date:
Signature: VAzDttN$ozxCigaryXuRzty8Ngt!U1pGjwZCYBh5         

If the client changes the original letter, the signature of the malicious letter will be changed.

So Malicious Letter:

From : Supplier(A)
To : Client(B)

You ove me 80$ for the digital painting

Place:
Date:
Signature: EjJQSOLo@CQe60R1iK3Tj&6am6cwJHI4skGypLSl        

• So now when the package is delivered to the client, rider(C) will write the data of the delivery on his registry. And also he will write the signature code of the transaction on his registry

There is no way to get the content of the letter by reverse engineering from the special code(hash code). So the rider can't get information about the letter by using the special code(Secure). So when the rider makes a copy of his registry and gives that to all the other riders, all the riders have the details and signature code according to the transaction

So now we can find the original letter using that signature that is in the registry.

This is all the concept and the behaviour of the Blockchain.

So Blockchain is a

Decentralized distributed ledger hat allows peer-to-peer (p2p) transactions secured by cryptographic algorithms and consensus mechanisms

Starting from Scratch

In my research, I found some steps to be a blockchain developer from scratch

1. Knowledge in Command Line
2. Knowledge about JavaScript
3. Basics of Blockchain
4. Solidity
5. Web3.js
6. Truffle Suite

Solidity is an OOP language used to write smart contracts. This is using for implementing smart contracts on various blockchain platforms. Most probably in the Ethereum chain

Web3.js allows you to interact with a local or remote Ethereum node using HTTP or IPC connection.

Programming languages to Blockchain Development

App Development Languages

• Solidity
• JavaScript
• Python

Core Development Languages

• Go
• Rust
• C++

Core Developers develop the infrastructure of the blockchain

What does the Blockchain Developer do?

1. Smart Contract Development (backend things)
2. Blockchain Website Development
3. Blockchain Mobile App Development
4. Blockchain backend(web servers) Development
5. Blockchain Infrastructure Development (Creating a new blockchain or updating/fine-tuning existing blockchains)

Future of the Blockchain

These points I got from a post that belongs to Aviv Lichtigstein

• The government will be at the forefront of adopting blockchain technology. They will use crypto as a way to make blockchain more mainstream and ensure that people start adopting digital currencies. It is easy to say that by the next 10 years, digital currency will become the default way to transfer value among people. To ensure control, the government will release cryptocurrencies backed by them. However, that doesn’t mean that other digital currencies will lose value -- but they will not be backed by the government. The good news about this is that government-backed digital currencies will be stable and backed by real-world assets.
• Blockchain will impact almost every aspect of our life. Right now, we can see how blockchain is changing different sectors. Take a supply chain, for example, where items are now tracked and managed through a blockchain-powered supply chain. It truly changes how supply chains work and how they can be used to automate it for good.
• In 10 years’ time, we will see better standardization when it comes to decentralized ledger technologies. Right now, innovation is taking place at a rapid pace, and in search of the first one to do it -- we are seeing different organizations taking different approaches to solve the problems. With time, these organizations will come together and create a unified approach that will not only help ease implementation challenges but also solve the mainstream adoption challenge as well.
• With time, we will see a well-established identity platform that works cross-border. As blockchain records data in an immutable state - it can be used for verification including government records, healthcare records, tax identification records, employment records, and so on!

Is blockchain a good career choice?

?There is a lot of money flowing into the blockchain space, and in general, it is a good idea to go where the money flows. Where there is a lot of money, there will be a lot of Jobs.