Is Blockchain the Future of Internet?

There’s been a lot of fuzz going around about the price surge of Bitcoins. For those of you who do not know, Bitcoin, invented by person (or maybe a group) under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamato, is a cryptocurrency or digital currency that is generated and regulated using cryptography. An interesting thing about Bitcoin is that it is completely virtual and there is no need of any bank to perform transactions. And the most important thing related to Bitcoin is the block chain technology that could revolutionize the economic and social system that currently holds the world together.


The value of bitcoin has changed a lot over the years. A Bitcoin which had almost zero value during the year 2009, had a value of 17900 USD on December 22,2017! I bet you’re wondering on how to get your hands on some of the Bitcoins. You can buy bitcoins from Bitcoin Exchanges, but you can also mine your Bitcoins using special software and hardware (This is called Bitcoin Mining). We will explore these in future articles. Bitcoin is the first application of blockchain technology. But many believe that blockchain technology can amount to more than just Bitcoin – it can revolutionize the world economy. So what is blockchain technology? How does it work? How is it going to revolutionize the world economy? To answer all these questions, you should have a basic understating of what a blockchain is.


A blockchain is a decentralized distributed system. The Harvard Business Review describes it as "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way." And the wonderful thing about blockchain is that there isn’t any individual or organisation to control the blockchain. Blockchain technology is based on peer-to-peer technology and cuts out “the Middle Man” for performing transactions and hence save time as well as cost. Blockchains consists of blocks that can be edited only the by the owner of that particular block. Block chains are open and details of each block can be seen by everyone in the blockchain. All data in the blockchain is secured using cryptography. The owner will have a private key with which participants in the blockchain can access the blocks they own. Every other member in the blockchain is responsible for the verification of the data that is to be added to the chain.


How is data secure in a blockchain? Like I mentioned before, there is no central organisation or authority to enable transactions and there is no central storage location. Every participant is involved in storing a part of the blockchain. They also play a crucial role in verifying the data in the block is not fake. A blockchain might consist of millions of computers connected to each other, with each computer holding some or all the blockchain data. So, for an attacker to corrupt or destroy the data in a blockchain means that he will have to get to all the computers connected in the blockchain which is a near impossible task. Thus blockchain technology is so far the only technology that provides a secure platform for storing and sharing information and this is one of the main reasons that experts think that blockchain technology can change the digital structure of the world.


The World Economic Forum had released a white paper titled Realizing the Potential of Blockchain which suggests how blockchain will expand throughout the world’s architecture. The idea of a disorganized ecosystem has rattled many people including WEF Managing Board Member Richard Samans. He said, “This report helps us to understand that a distributed blockchain ecosystem need not be a disorganized one, and improved governance need not imply formal governmental legislation or regulation”. You can read the paper from here. Is blockchain the next big thing after the Internet? Let's wait and see.



About the Author

Khurshid Kamar

Khurshid Kamar is a Software Engineer who has merged his passion for all things technological with his enthusiasm for writing. This computer geek spends most of his free time looking up the latest what’s what in technology and the rest, watching movies and anime, listening to rock music and Eminem and hanging out with other nerdy friends. Connect with him on Google+.