Crypto Academy Season 3 Beginners' Course - Homework Post for Task 3 (Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies,Public Chains. By @giftye

Hello professor @stream4u, I want to appreciate your efforts in making this wonderful post that has taught me so much. I've gone through the lecture post and here's my homework entry.

Now, before I proceed with the definition of public chain,I would like to throw a little light on the meaning of private chain.

One of the most tasking aspects of any blockchain project establishment is making decisions on whether to develop a private chain or a public chain.

: When a thing is private it means there are restrictions to the accessibility or usage of that thing. Same thing applies to a private chain. There are restrictions on which business, cooperation, organizations or individuals can access them. These kind of Chains are also called permissioned network.

In order for a person or an organization to gain access or participation in this kind of chain,they must be invited by the network owners or they must have met a specific membership standard set by the network owners. The major role they play in the blockchain realm is to improve the working abilities of large businesses.

Public chains offer a more transparent and open access opportunity to participants. As the name suggests, public talks about unrestricted access. Examples of public chain include: Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. The transparency and the decentralized nature of this chain has made it a candidate for fast user adoption.

Public chain offers the opportunity for decentralized applications (dapps) to be created by open-source developers,and it gives a better option for peer-to-peer transactions than private networks.

Public chain validates transactions by using a consensus mechanism. Bitcoin and Ethereum are two typical examples of a public chain network that use the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, although Ethereum is now venturing into the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

The decentralized nature of a public chain offers a system that is not controlled by any single individual,and makes it possible for anyone to join.
The similarities between between private and public chains is that both platforms have stored data that are immutable,and they both rely on their users for validation.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF PUBLIC CHAIN

• Transactions made cannot be tracked back to the transactor.
• Nodes can be added and downloaded by anyone.
• Public chains are slower than private chains.
• The ledger can be accessed by every node.

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ADVANTAGES	DISADVANTAGES
This blockchain is designed to function with a high level security protocol,which it difficult to be hacked into by hackers	This chain can only offer block sizes that are limited.
Miners and transactors' identities are kept anonymous,which provides a level of privacy	As much as the anonymity feature can be seen as an advantage,in the case of fraud and there's a need to trace down the fraudulent party,this feature makes it problematic.
It is decentralized in nature,meaning: information is not stored in a central system,and it can be accessed from anywhere and at anytime.	Ethereum is venturing into the proof-of-stake and leaving the proof-of-work by shifting it's consensus mechanism because one doesn't need to show a proof of identity to become part of the system,by committing your process power and being able to solve the puzzle,you can become a part of the system.
Records stored in this chain are immutable. Based on the cryptographic encryption on transactions the whole system is made secure and safe.	This immutability feature doesn't permit a back track in transactions. Once a transaction has taken place it can't be reversed or edited.
Transparency is another advantage,it allows data and information to be seen by all.	The consensus mechanism: Bitcoin for instance, functions on the proof-of-work mechanism,which requires miners to solve a complex mathematical problem. And this consumes a lot of electrical power and other resources as well,making is quite expensive.

CONCLUSION
From what i've understood so far,i believe the question of choosing or deciding on which type of chain is better and more suitable for users is strictly relative. Developers create blockchains and classify them as private or public to fulfill specific purposes. So in adopting a chain or participating in any,one needs to make sure it's the type of chain that satisfies a premeditated demand and/or purpose for participation.

Thanks to the professors for your tireless efforts so far. Hope I meet up to your standards.