Blockchain Technology Tips – With the price of Bitcoin going parabolic in 2017, the underlying technology, blockchain, has been a hot topic this year too. For those unaware, a blockchain is an ever-growing list of information that is cryptographically secured.
They behave like a database only they require no trust from those using the network. Typically, with ledgers and databases, trust needs to be instilled in a central authority by all those wishing to use the information stored. However, a true blockchain is decentralized.
This means that anyone with the correct equipment can join the network and act towards securing it and validating additions to the ledger. For a change to be made, it needs to be accepted by the entire network. This removes the necessity of trusting a single entity and those using the ledger instead rely on the rest of the participants to ensure that all the information is correct, and no rules have been broken when adding new data.
Beginning Of a Massive Disruption: Blockchain Technology Tips
A full explanation of how blockchains work, blockchain tutorial w3schools, would require an article many times the length of this one. For those interested in the specifics, a great starting point is the work of Andreas Antonopoulos. He’s a big believer in the power of blockchain and has been for many years. Finally, it seems the rest of the world is beginning to catch up.
Blockchains Can’t be Altered
For the time being, all you need to know is that blockchains, blockchain tutorials for beginners free, can’t be altered without considerable time. And financial burden and they are checked and secured by an entire network, rather than a single trusted entity. This means that members of the network can join or leave as they please and the chain of information will continue regardless.
Must Read: Blockchain Currency In Cryptocurrency Market
Digital Currencies Such as Bitcoin
The first application of blockchain tech has been digital currencies such as Bitcoin, how blockchain works step by step, Ether, and Monero. However, as the technology matures, additional use cases are being discovered. In the world, as we know it today, there are all kinds of middlemen that sponge a living by providing “trust”. Weirdly, we believe that these entities won’t betray us even though they routinely do. Take the 2008-9 financial crash. People across the globe trusted central banks without question. The speculative behavior that bankers engaged in using the cash of millions to finance dubious practices crashed the global economy in a way not experienced in almost a century. It was these very events that spawned the very first use and most famous use case of blockchain technology Bitcoin.
Finance: Blockchain Technology Tips
No discussion of the revolutionary power of blockchain, blockchain courses for beginners, would be complete without mention of finance. The first widespread use case of the technology has been to provide the security necessary for a viable digital alternative to cash. The most famous application to the day remains Bitcoin. The original architect of Bitcoin, the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, designed it in such a way that value could be transferred globally without ever needing to communicate with a central authority.
Transfer Money Globally: Blockchain Technology Tips
Think about how we traditionally transfer money globally. You give a bank some cash with the instruction to send it to another account in whichever country. They’ll then take a sizeable portion of the amount as payment for handling funds and start the process. Eventually, after several banks have communicated with each other over a week or two, the recipient should receive the money. That is, of course, so long as none of the entities handling the money betray the trust both you. And the receiver was forced to have in them. When you break it down like this, the whole thing seems insane.
Gambling: Blockchain Technology Tips
Another industry that stands to see great upheaval thanks to blockchain technology is gambling. There are several ways that the blockchain is set to revolutionize casinos. Firstly, using blockchain to underpin a payment method such as Bitcoin has several advantages for any industry that requires deposits from many users. Bitcoin is already becoming prevalent as a banking method at online gambling sites. Traditionally, online casinos would have to pay extortionate fees for payment processing services.
The Burden of the Fee
These substantially eat into the casinos’ profits and their expenses are, of course, passed onto the customer by way of reduced return-to-player ratings. With Bitcoin, the burden of the fee is on the sender. This means that transactions aren’t free for the player but thanks to the low cost of fees faced when using Bitcoin. The convenience of removing the element of trust entirely is worth the low contribution to the network. What’s more, withdrawals take considerably less time to hit the player’s Bitcoin wallet than they do when using traditional banking deposit methods.
Bankrolls on Centralized
This creates a different dynamic between the player and the casino. Users of the service no longer feel compelled to keep large bankrolls on centralized services. They can finish their session, and withdraw their funds back to their wallet within less than an hour. If they feel like playing the next day, they can make another deposit, followed by a withdrawal when they’ve had enough. Therefore, they need to have far less trust in the casino since the amount of value they’ll be protecting for players is substantially less.
Ethereum Blockchain
However, it’s not just payment processing that will be improved by blockchain technology. Services like the voice on the Ethereum blockchain are entirely decentralized themselves. They don’t require the player to send their funds to any third party at all. Instead, they are played directly from an Ethereum wallet that only the player knows the details of. Using smart contract technology, a bet is placed, and any winnings go directly to the wallet that sent the funds. Whilst the game is a simple one for now, several developers are working on ways to bring this kind of trust-less functionality to other casino classics. It won’t be long until there are entirely decentralized casinos operating online. The gamblers of tomorrow will find it insane that people ever sent money to a random internet company in the hope that they’d play fair with it.
Real Estate: Blockchain Technology Tips
Blockchain is already making big moves in the real estate industry. Traditionally, if you wanted to buy or sell a property, a huge amount of paperwork, and a lengthy (and costly) legal process would ensue. Both parties must trust an intermediary with cash and deeds. However, thanks to services like Ubitquity, ownership can be logged, stored, and transferred without the need for a middleman at all. This allows sellers to receive a greater portion of the eventual price of their property and most likely results in savings for the buyer too.
Voting and Governance
Another aspect of life that requires a lot of trust is voting. In democratic nations, we’re told that all voting is fairly conducted. To ensure that this is the case, we trust watchdogs to check up on the process of counting votes and ensuring that all who participated were eligible to do so and that there were no ballots cast twice.
Great Level of Trust
Future elections might not need such a great level of trust at all. By using a blockchain-based system instead, the number of people required to ensure a fair vote would be substantially decreased. This would result in a system that benefits from dramatically improved efficiency. As well as making electoral fraud virtually impossible. Platforms like FollowMyVote aim to make this a reality.
Centralized Sources
By creating a blockchain for voting, and considering every vote as a transaction, a system of direct democracy could occur. Voting would be fast and efficient allowing for votes on a larger number of issues to take place. Rather than elect (and trust) a political party to serve the people, every decision could be put to the people themselves. Even the most trivial things could be put to a countrywide referendum. Should we increase the speed limit to 100 miles per hour on highways? Instead of relying on centralized sources of power to decide for us, why not decide amongst ourselves? The votes could be automatically tallied and within hours of the close of voting, we’d have an answer that was achieved through genuine democracy, rather than the charade we currently reserve the term for.
Music Streaming
The music industry is already undergoing a huge upheaval. Thanks to streaming services, more people have access to the music that they love than ever before. They simply load up YouTube, or Spotify, and can instantly get their favorite artists’ entire back catalog, B-Sides and all. However, whilst this has been great for consumers and the middlemen providing the streaming services, it’s not fantastic for artists. Often the creators of our favorite tracks are the last to be compensated if they are at all.
Smart Contracts
Blockchain-based streaming services could change all that, however. Using smart contracts and some variety of pay-per-play models. Artists could receive payment every time someone hits play on one of their tracks. For simplicity’s sake, let’s imagine that the streaming service of tomorrow charges 5c every time an album gets played. We’ll also presume that there are four members of the band and one producer. A smart contract between users of the service and the artists represented on. It could be signed guaranteeing that each of the contributors receives 1c for every time the album is played.
Record Company: Blockchain Technology Tips
This payment wouldn’t occur behind closed doors. It would happen on the blockchain and every person responsible for bringing the product to the ears of the eventual consumer would be compensated for their troubles. There’d be no need for management, a record company. Or any other such industry vultures preying on the art of others. The relationship between the listener and the performer would be direct. This would allow those in smaller, lesser-known bands a greater shot at getting their music heard. And if people like it, they’d be afforded a better opportunity to create more thanks to themselves being in a better position financially.
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