Blockchain is a permanent and irreversible record generated by superimposing (chaining) encrypted data (blocks) in chronological order. In a sense, blockchain technology is a new “information transfer” technology in the Internet era. The following figure clearly illustrates the working process of this information transfer technology.
If you feel that the process is abstract, you can understand from its implementation effect that the information transmission of the blockchain can achieve the effect similar to “WeChat group chat”:
Send a message in the group, and all the people in the group know and have the same result. For example, someone in the group sent a picture of an apple. If group member A said it was a banana, then group members B, C and any group member knew that A was wrong.
Although the examples are simple, the functions of the blockchain can not be underestimated. There have been embarrassing events in China that require “proving that my mother is my mother”. It is not uncommon to see seemingly absurd proofs in real life, such as student certificates, graduation certificates, property certificates, etc. In fact, we often encounter some counterfeiting problems in our life, but the blockchain application may be greatly improved!
You can judge the authenticity of the records generated by the blockchain. You don’t need to worry about the authenticity of documents such as “graduation certificates”, “mother certificates” or “house property certificates”. In fact, the blockchain startup Bitproof has cooperated with Hobleton School, which announced that it will use Bitcoin blockchain technology to issue academic certificates to students to solve the problem of academic fraud. Therefore, The Economist once compared the blockchain to a machine that creates trust.
Blockchain application
Some people think that if the steam engine releases people’s productivity, electricity solves people’s basic life needs, and the Internet changes the way of information transmission, then the blockchain, as a machine for building trust, will probably change the way of value transmission of the entire human society.
From the above introduction, we can realize that the most feasible application of blockchain technology is in the aspect of “notarization”. In fact, Alipay has contributed a lot to the rapid development of Alibaba. Because Alipay can provide guarantee as a third party, compared with the buyer and seller trading separately online, which solves the trust problem in the transaction process. If blockchain technology is used as the basis, and the information obtained through blockchain technology is true and reliable, people do not need to guarantee transactions through a third party. Therefore, some people say that blockchain has the characteristics of “going to the third party” or “no need to trust the system”. Blockchain technology has broad application prospects, and there are also many fields to try to apply it. You can learn something from the following two pictures:
(The picture is from the Blockchain Reference Architecture of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology)
In addition to the above exceptions, blockchain can also be naturally integrated in the field of Internet of Things and logistics. Blockchain can reduce logistics costs, trace the production and delivery process of goods, and improve the efficiency of supply chain management.
Blockchain and Bitcoin
When it comes to blockchain, we have to mention Bitcoin. We know that paper money is usually issued with the credit endorsement of a central bank, but it has two problems: over issuance of currency and counterfeit money! The electronic currency formed by blockchain technology can well solve these two problems. In fact, this is also the original story of Bitcoin: In 2008, Japanese “Nakamoto Cong” published an article in an email group discussing information encryption on the Internet, outlining the basic framework of Bitcoin system. In 2009, he established an open source code project for the system, officially announcing the birth of Bitcoin.
From this, we can know that Bitcoin is built on the basis of blockchain technology, but it is only one of many applications of this technology and is by no means equivalent to blockchain.
