Over the past few years, you might have came across the term "Blockchain", Probably because of Bitcoin or If you are a technology enthusiast person and enjoy to explore and learn new technologies, you might have also came across it. So the questions are- "What is Blockchain?" and "How blockchain is different from any other traditional technology?"

Here, I will be explaining in a beginner level about the blockchain technology and how this concept is revolutionizing the new era of technology.

What is Blockchain:

As the name indicates, we can say- "blockchain is a chain of block that contains information". This technology was originally described in 1991 by a group of researchers and was first implemented in 2009 by a anonymous developer called "Satoshi Nakamoto", Who is also known as the developer of Bitcoin. Now let's discuss what actually a block is. And how a complete chain of blocks are formed.

When you have data from multiple sources, They are stored separately in individual blocks, where a individual block is consists of-

1: Relevant Data : The actual data that users want to store over the blockchain network.

2: Hash Value: A unique value or a fingerprint of each blocks to authenticate and connect multiple blocks together over the network and to form a complete blockchain network.

3: Previous hash: Like a Linked list, In blockchain also each block keeps the record of their previous block to establish a secure connection between the blocks. The first block of the chain is known as the Genesis block.

Distributed ledger of blockchain:

The record of all the transactions in the blockchain are stored in a ledger. The ledger is consists of all the important information of the transaction like- The time of transaction performed, All the parties involved in the transaction, and in some cases even the amount transacted.

Blockchain uses the concept of distributed or the open ledger which means, The copy of all the transactions of that blockchain are available to anyone over the network. Since anyone in the network can access the same ledger and the power is not centralized to any one organization the blockchain is decentralized. This makes the blockchain different from any other technology or the traditional banking system.

Security in blockchain:

One of the attributes that the blockchain is often associated with is its immutability. Immutable means that you cannot manipulate or tamper the data that are already present in the blockchain. As discussed earlier, At the time of block formation each block has its own unique hash value, which was generated using various hash function is SHA-256, i.e., Secure Hash Algorithm 256. So tampering the data of a single block also leads to the change of Its hash value. Since the hash of that block is stored to the next block to maintain a secure connection the complete connection fails and the breach can be detected easily.

The Pros and Cons of blockchain:

No matter how good a technology is, there are always room for improvement. There are advantages and drawbacks to using the blockchain. Here are some pros and cons to consider:

Pros:

1: Transaction histories are becoming more transparent through the use of blockchain. This reduces the chances of any kind of data tampering or can track any illegal transactions.

2: To change a single transaction record, One should require to change all the subsequent block. An open, shared ledger system that’s tamper-proof without control of 51% of computers on the network.

3: Decentralized distribution of power prevents large institution and organization to have centralized control over user's data.

4: Blockchain also offers faster transactions compared to traditional means. Usually, the centralized banks can take a lot of time even to process a small transaction. It became more eminent when someone tries to send money overseas. However, with blockchain, you can complete a transaction within a few seconds.

Cons:

1: The computation needs of this technology are more repetitive than centralized servers. It is because every time the ledger is updated, all the nodes need to update their version of the ledger as well.

2: Each time you want to enter the system, you must verify your credentials through a complex signature verification.

3: At present some governments are targeting financial blockchain activity and seeking to limit it.

4: As the technology is relatively new, There aren’t many capable developers that can work on it.

Conclusion:

The pros of this technology outweigh the cons, and that is why people as well as big organization like- Amazon, IBM are running to implement it on a larger level. With time hopefully, the large-scale adoption and technological advancements, they will overcome these disadvantages. Post that time, the work methods of all enterprises should see a drastic change.