Question

What is Blockchain? How is distributed ledger being leveraged for its use?

Answer 1

What is block chain ?

A block chain is a tamper-evident, shared digital ledger that records transactions in a public or private peer-to-peer network. Distributed to all member nodes in the network, the ledger permanently records, in a sequential chain of cryptographic hash-linked blocks, the history of asset exchanges that take place between the peers in the network.

All the confirmed and validated transaction blocks are linked and chained from the beginning of the chain to the most current block, hence the name block chain. The block chain thus acts as a single source of truth, and members in a block chain network can view only those transactions that are relevant to them.

How is distributed ledger being leveraged for its use?

Instead of relying on a third party, such as a financial institution, to mediate transactions, member nodes in a block chain network use a consensus protocol to agree on ledger content, and cryptographic hashes and digital signatures to ensure the integrity of transactions.

Consensus ensures that the shared ledgers are exact copies, and lowers the risk of fraudulent transactions, because tampering would have to occur across many places at exactly the same time. Cryptographic hashes, such as the SHA 256 computational algorithm, ensure that any alteration to transaction input — even the most minuscule change — results in a different hash value being computed, which indicates potentially compromised transaction input. Digital signatures ensure that transactions originated from senders (signed with private keys) and not imposters.

The decentralized peer-to-peer block chain network prevents any single participant or group of participants from controlling the underlying infrastructure or undermining the entire system. Participants in the network are all equal, adhering to the same protocols. They can be individuals, state actors, organizations, or a combination of all these types of participants.

At its core, the system records the chronological order of transactions with all nodes agreeing to the validity of transactions using the chosen consensus model. The result is transactions that cannot be altered or reversed, unless the change is agreed to by all members in the network in a subsequent transaction.