Blockchain, the key technology behind Bitcoin, is a new network that helps decentralize trade, and allows for more peer-to-peer transactions. WIRED challenged political scientist and blockchain researcher Bettina Warburg to explain blockchain technology to 5 different people; a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert.
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Blockchain Expert Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty | WIRED
Want more? Check out my new in-depth course on the latest in Bitcoin, Blockchain, and a survey of the most exciting projects coming out (Ethereum, etc): app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/bitcoin-decentralized-technology
Lots of demos on how to buy, send, store (hardware, paper wallet). how to use javascript to send bitcoin. How to create Ethereum Smart Contract, much more.
Understanding how blockchain works and identifying myths about its powers are the first steps to developing blockchain technologies.
Blockchain is an algorithm and distributed data structure for managing electronic cash without a central administrator among people who know nothing about one another. Originally designed for the crypto-currency Bitcoin, the blockchain architecture was driven by a radical rejection of at (government-guaranteed) money and bank-controlled payments.
Blockchain is a special instance of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), almost all of which have emerged in Bitcoins wake.
HOW DOES BLOCKCHAIN WORK?
Blockchain is a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that was invented to support the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was motivated by an extreme rejection of government-guaranteed money and bank-controlled payments. The developer of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned people spending money without friction, intermediaries, regulation or the need to know or trust other parties.
Technically, the original blockchain is separable from Bitcoin, but this report will show that the blockchain design is so specific to Bitcoin that its not a good fit for much else.
The central problem in electronic cash is Double Spend. Because pure electronic money is just data, nothing stops a currency holder from trying to spend it twice. Blockchain solves the Double Spend problem without a digital reserve fund or similar form of umpire.
Blockchain monitors and verifies Bitcoin transactions by calling upon a decentralized network of volunteer-run nodes to, in effect, vote on the order in which transactions occur. The networks algorithm ensures that each transaction is unique.
Video created by the Centre of International Governance Innovation.
Digital currency, how does it work, whats a data miner and will Bitcoin last? We asked Professor Ross Anderson of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.
This is part two in my basic visual introduction to the concepts behind a blockchain. We build on the concepts from the previous video and introduce public / private key pairs and signing using an interactive web demo.
The details of how public keys relate to private keys are hard to summarize, but it has to do with Eulers theorem. Basically, using Eulers theorem there is some math you can do to a number given some parameters (which Ill call the public key) which allows someone with some other parameters (which Ill call the private key) to decipher the original number without having to do brute force factorization because there is a shortcut way to find the phi of a prime number. Rather than me butchering the explanation, check this video series out for a more detailed explanation: www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/cryptography/modern-crypt/v/the-fundamental-theorem-of-arithmetic-1
Im @anders94 on Twitter and @andersbrownworth on Steemit.
At Global Architecture Week 2015, we covered ‘Digital Currencies and Cash’ and their relevance to Tax and Welfare Authorities, concluding with the message: “It’s not about Bitcoin, it’s about the Blockchain”.
Blockchain technology has the potential to enable a new mutually trusted, transparent way of sharing and transacting. In the UK Public Sector, Sir Mark Walport’s report Distributed Ledger Technology: Beyond Blockchain encouraged Government to assess its early use and potential. Meanwhile in the private sector, Blockchain FinTech excitement among start-ups and venture capitalists remained strong for a technology promised to be “like a whole new internet for value exchange”.
But where are the real world use cases today? What is it that makes a use case more likely to succeed?
In this talk, Nick Meyne, Enterprise Architect, Capgemini shares and discusses a number of Capgemini examples.
Filmed at Capgemini Week of Innovation Networks 2016 in Telford, UK.
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