The Blockchain And The Society - What Revolution Can We Expect?

Blockchain is not a newer topic, it's been there for years, but it's getting more popularity these days. So, in this article we are going to discuss what blockchain actually is, what benefits does it bring, and what consequences will it lead to the society.

What Actually Is A Blockchain ?

a digital ledger in which transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly.

Okay, let's dig through the definition. It's a distributed database that keeps the record of every transactions involving value. It could be money, goods, property, works, votes and also in the case of steem blockchain your posts, comments, upvotes, dowvotes and every activities you make here is recorded. The database is open so that it maintains transparency. Remember, it's a long chain of blocks that is continuously growing and you can't alter the chain going through some points in the past. If anyone tries to go to the some point in the past and alter a block, then it will alter all the blocks since then. Since there are many peers of blockchain on a distributed system, we can see if any of the blocks have been altered. So, it will be very harder to alter or break any block in the past. That is why we say, a blockchain is immutable or unchangeable.

How The Blockchain Works Under The Hood ?

The very simple theme here is that it works as a system where records could be stored that could be verified by anyone and security is guaranteed. That's why no one can alter the system by editing because everyone using the system would be watching. Blockchain stores information across the network of personal computers making them not just decentralized but distributed. This means no central authority owns the system, yet everyone can use it. The people who run the system holds bundles of records submitted by others known as blocks in a chronological chain. The blockchain uses cryptography, which is a form of maths used in solving codes, to ensure that records can't be altered by anyone. Digital coins like bitcoins, ethereum, steem etc uses their own blockchain by tracking records of ownership over digital cash so only one person can be owner at a time and a cash can't be sent twice.

I hope you get the clear picture from this picture :)

Bitcoin Is Not A Blockchain

Many people might already know about the bitcoin. It's simply a digital money that you can send and receive online. But, when some people hear about the blockchain they confuse blockchain with bitcoin. Well, blockchain is a technology, it's a distributed system, but bitcoin is a cryptocurrency which runs on a blockchain. Blockchain is not only limited to bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies and this is what you have to keep in mind. We will talk about applications and use case scenario of a blockchain and how it's going to bring a revolution to the society in the later part of this blog.

What Revolution Can Blockchain Society Bring?

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoins, ethereum, dash, steem etc is just the beginning of a blockchain revolution. In the future, we can see blockchains that manage and verify online data which enables us to launch companies that are entirely run by algorithms. The future global economy will move towards one of the distributed property and trust where anyone access to the internet can get involved in blockchain based transactions and third party trust organizations are no longer required.
The uses of blockchain technology are endless. Some area that we can see blockchain being used in the near future are as follows:

• To collect taxes
• digital voting
• distributed cloud storage
• to help personal identification like passports, citizenship, birth certificates etc
• smart contract
• recording trades
• land registries
• smartcard payment
  and so on ...

Blockchain The Second Era Of The Internet

Today we rely on all source of institution that exists as third party authority to maintain sets of records. That role as a third party is no longer necessary with the introduction of a blockchain society. We can do transaction without having to trust any sources, thereby there will no longer be high fees for the transaction. And also, it is more reliable and secure because it is distributed on a open ledger and anyone with the internet access can easily view the records and not intercept it.
Blockchain is a network, unlike networks we see today which are centralized, it's a decentralized and a distributed network. Today, this is actually possible that you can digitally sign the transactions or other kinds of information so that you prove to people that you actually signed it. This is much more secure than the signatures we use today. There's going to be a lot of innovations in the blockchain based technologies. Can you just imagine the next generation banking network that's resident on a phone, that's decentralized, distributed, based on a digital token or digital assets that's not issued by a bank or the government?

yes, it's very possible!!

what do you think... will government, financial and legal institutions embrace blockchain? Can we build the trust worthy blockchain society?

let me know in the comments :)

( Image reference: 1, 2, 3, 4

For more information about blockchain and it's impact, I suggest these references : 1, 2, 3

To know more technical on how blockchain/ or bitcoin works under the hood, see here )

Blockchain is as significant now as the internet was 25 years ago.
~Thomson Reuters

feel free to ask any questions if you have any confusions, and don't forget to upvote and resteem this post if you wish to spread knowledge.

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your loving steemian,
Aashish Kandel

Namaste, bless you :)