Why: Relatively fast transactions, no fees,
can occur irrespective of geography,
How: Bitcoin Wallet, essentially your ‘bank
account’ of all transactions (private keys) and
value.
and relation to other blocks around it.
Where: Originally served at the official ledger
for Bitcoin transactions.
When: Every ten minutes or so a new block of
data transactions is added to the chain.
Bitcoin Address: essentially your bank account
number
Why: A secure way or moving, transferring or
storing information
Private Key: Your access code to your wallet
Nodes: Computers on the network storing bits
of the blockchain ledger
Application: Any field or industry
Bitcoin Mining: Computers that solve math
problems quickly to add a block of information
to the blockchain. If you are the first to complete
the problem you can reward yourself with 25
bitcoins.
The Blockchain: A network of computers
validates and keeps track of bitcoin payments,
and ensures that they are recorded by being
added to an ever-growing list of all the bitcoin
payments that have been made.
BLOCKCHAIN Basics:
Blockchain has been touted as being a
disruption to banks as well as a saviour to
banks, from replacing third parties to creating
more efficient third parties, and of course
enabling financial inclusion. At the end of the
day, a Blockchain is a chain of blocks, or a giant
file that is broken up and stored on a network of
computers, that when combined forms a chain
of information that is mutually agreed upon and
confirmed by the network. Each block is like a
book – with title, table of contents, data and a
page number in the former of a fingerprint that
references the previous block. Bits and pieces
of these blocks are stored as files on different
computers within the network. The Blockchain
is a public record that anyone, with access, can
see.
Ben Pousty of itBit.com says, “Blockchain
technology offers the financial services
industry the opportunity to create faster more
efficient market infrastructure. Introducing
instantaneous settlement into key capital
markets will reduce counterparty risk, increase
trade velocity and lower capital requirements.
The concept of a shared ledger and immutable
transaction record will provide for transparent
auditability. Over time, programs like bankchain.
com will have the ability to provide participants
across the financial services industry with new
revenue opportunities, streamlined operations
and significant cost-savings.”
The Harvard Business Review recently
completed a two-year study of Blockchain
and found that the uses extended to nearly all
fields. “Where not just information but anything
of value – money, titles, deeds, music, art,
scientific discoveries, intellectual property, and
even votes – can be moved and stored securely
and privately.” Think of it this way,
Blockchain creates a digital registry of
everything from financial transactions to works
of art or design – meaning there will be a
public ledger making forgery that much harder
and creating a new level of transparency. If
companies don’t want to get left behind, and
miss the wave of technology they had better
start disrupting their old model. And if we
want to get jobs, in competitive industries,
we had better understand the technology and
implications.
Who: Managed and kept current by miners,
or nodes, on the network.
What: A continuously growing ledger of data
records. Comprised of ‘blocks’ that are secure
and cannot be tampered with. Each block is
fingerprinted to identify location in the chain
STAR
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