Blockchain Technology – What You Need to Know

Article contributed by Dr. Nitin Pandey, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Technology and Computer Applications

Block-chain is a technology that keeps the records of transaction in distributed database or in ledger to provide some services of digital events such as bit-coin from one individual to another individual. For example if a person in China sends money to a person in India then the services of trusted third party such as Western union / Bank / PayPal are required however by using Block-chain money can be transferred from an individual in one continent or country to another individual in same or different continent or country without third party.

Block-chain is a public ledger where all the users of network are aware of all the transactions of all users within a network and every user of network can decide whether transactions are valid or not, that’s why there is no chance of unethical transaction.

If any transaction takes place in block-chain, it is recorded in distributed database in all the systems of network, so the hacking in block-chain is not an easy task because for hacking hacker needs to hack all the systems at the same time that is almost impossible that is why it’s considered a secure technology.

Block-chain was first used for bit coin. Bit coin is a decentralized crypto currency that does not under any authority such as bank / country. use of block-chain began for crypto currency but now it is under research for the betterment of government work or public work.      

Block-chain is a fault tolerance technology because data can not be lost. For example a failure of RAM, hard disk or cpu can crash the system causes data lost but in block-chain if failure occurs in some systems(nodes) then it can be tolerated because all the transactions are stored in all the systems. Block-chain is a distributed database that does not belong to one to two systems however it is distributed into thousands or millions of computers.

Now days block-chain is used in crypto currency but during the next couple of years we will surly see it in banking sector, public sector or private sector. Gradually every department will be adopting it due to safety, security and fault tolerance. Either it will be a matter of university degree or passport once it is recorded in block chain it can not be hacked or lost. Under government scheme in natural calamity, disaster, scholarship, compensation can be transferred directly to the beneficiary without intervention of third party causes reduction in corruption.    

Block-chain may also be applied in government or legal documents such as legal document of any property that is recorded in public register which is really a proof of the owner of a property. So there is a possibility that in future the work of public register shall be done by block-chain because validity of recorded transaction in block chain must be same as the validity of transaction in public register with more security and robustness.