Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S6W1 - The Blockchain Revolution

Designed on Canva

Let me start by commending the Steemit Crypto Academy for successfully completing season 5, and entering the 6th season of the Steemit Engagement Challenge. So far, it has been an interesting journey with the academy, as I have learned and discovered many concepts related to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.

For the first week of season 6, the crypto academy has presented an interesting topic of discussion titled The Blockchain Revolution by @crypto-academy.

You would agree with me that blockchain technology is changing the way we do business and interact with each other in numerous ways across the globe. From digital identity management to supply chain management, global finance, and banking systems. This technology has become very important to society and today, I will be sharing my views and findings about the revolution of this blockchain technology.

Cryptocurrency refers to a new way of transferring money by using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. This method offers some advantages over other means such as bank or credit card payments or cash transactions. For example, bitcoin transactions are essentially instant whereas bank payments can take days to clear, especially across international borders.

Using cryptocurrencies is also less expensive, compared to credit cards or banking services, especially when it comes to cross-border payments which involve fees, charges, and exchange rates that end up considerably reducing the value of your transfer amount after a while.

Free Pixabay Download

Cryptocurrency is one of the most revolutionary technological advancements of our lifetime, and it has brought on a worldwide economic revolution that has changed the way we do business forever. Through the use of blockchain technology, digital currencies have opened up an entirely new realm of opportunities in many different industries and markets, including e-commerce and the digital economy at large.

Cryptocurrency offers many advantages over other forms of money and payment options, but it’s also extremely volatile and risky when compared to government-backed currencies like the Dollar, Naira, or Euro.

In truth, cryptocurrency brought a revolution to the digital economy, given the fact that transactions between two different parties have been made easier, transparent, and without the involvement of s middleman.

Not only can individuals participate in the digital economy, but companies can also start accepting payments from anywhere in the world without having to worry about currency conversion rates or transaction fees.

Cryptocurrency has been called many things in the last several years: an economic revolution, an unstable source of inflation, the future of finance, etc.

This whole cryptocurrency revolution started with the invention of Bitcoin in 2008. Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto as an alternative to traditional currencies and their disadvantages (e.g. high-risk of inflation, theft, etc.)

Bitcoin was designed so that it would be impossible to counterfeit and have a finite number of Bitcoins in circulation at any point in time. The problem with the original design for Bitcoin was that it could only be used for transactions between people and not between companies or individuals.

Cryptocurrency is changing the way we think about our world by putting us back in control of our money. It's a revolution that cannot be stopped, capturing the world's attention and imagination because it decentralizes currency and removes the need for banks.

It allows people to use their money as they please, without anyone else having control over them or their finances. Plus, it eliminates the problem of inflation, as no one can inflate the currency when there are no centralized powers in charge of it.

There are many cryptocurrencies on the market today, and their existence is based on two categories: tokens and coins. Coins are usually built on top of blockchain technology and represent an entirely new currency or asset. Tokens, on the other hand, do not have their blockchain and provide access to an application or service that is built on top of a blockchain.

A blockchain which was originally spelled simultaneously as block-chain, is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Blocks are confirmed by miners who use a hash function (a mathematical function) to find a number.

By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data that has been recorded by means of ensuring that the hash function applied to the data results in an unpredictable output or hash. This system ensures that a cryptocurrency cannot be spent twice by the same person or on two different transactions. It also prevents any transaction from being carried out without ownership being proven.

Blockchain technology was originally developed as a way of tracking bitcoin transactions, through a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, which allowed for the sending of payments between two people without the need for an intermediary.

This would be done through the use of public and private keys to encrypt information on a shared ledger called a blockchain, which is a digital and decentralized ledger that records transactions between two parties efficiently, verifiably, permanently, and transparently.

But it has since grown into something much more significant. There are three main purposes for blockchain technology, which includes:managing transactions, verifying records, and maintaining permanent records.

Free Pixabay Download

This Blockchain system is now widely used across various parts of the world for recording and storing information. The use cases for blockchain technology vary from banking to voting, but in general, it can be used as an immutable database of transactions or other data that could not be changed or destroyed by any single entity.

That’s a question that only the future can confidently give the accurate answer to, but it’s an important one to ask, as some people regard blockchain as the next generation of the internet. It’s powered by miners who offer up their processing power to verify transactions, which adds blocks of data to the chain in exchange for cryptocurrency.

It has been observed that larger companies have started encouraging the adoption of blockchain technology in developing new products and services. The most obvious way to create a blockchain without a connection to the internet would be to use satellites, which would act as intermediaries to pass information between nodes on earth.

This blockchain works by storing blocks of data in nodes, which exist on the internet. If you want to use this blockchain without an internet connection, you would need to find a way to store your blocks of data offline.

Nevertheless, they have been cases, where blockchain existed without internet connections. DApps can exist without an internet connection because they store their data on a blockchain. These applications are powered by the consensus of nodes, which means that there is no need for centralized servers. DApps are more secure than traditional apps because they don’t have a single point of failure and use cryptography to make all data tamper-proof.

Another popular blockchain project that can work without the internet is Ethereum. It's a blockchain that does not need to rely on an internet connection. Instead, it relies on a peer-to-peer network of nodes. IPFS is a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that is designed to make the web faster, safer, decentralized, and permanent. Ethereum uses IPFS for its permanent storage needs which provides security and censorship resistance.

To understand the answer, you must first know how blockchain works in general, which involves three main parts: nodes, distributed ledgers, and cryptography. While all three of these parts are essential to the operation of blockchain, it’s cryptography that helps cryptocurrency generation occur within the system itself.

Computers solve complex math problems with cryptographic hash functions; in exchange for their work, miners earn coins that can be traded or used as currency.

Free Pixabay Download

storing data across its network, instead of on just one computer. This means that there is no central point of failure, so the information can't be hacked or lost due to a computer malfunction. Blockchain-based transactions are immutable and irreversible. Once the information has been written onto the blockchain and confirmed by the other nodes on the network, it becomes an indelible part of history.

So in general, cryptocurrency is created based on what is referred to as Consensus Mechanism/Algorithm. This refers to the process that allows people to come together and agree on something. Many cryptocurrencies reach consensus through different ways, but a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin can only be created if the majority of users are in agreement about the contents of a transaction.

Blockchain technology is what makes cryptocurrency possible, at least for the creation of Bitcoin in 2009. It allows each participant or node in a blockchain network to have an updated version of events and eliminates any need for other intermediaries to authenticate or validate transactions.

Many cryptocurrency projects equally followed the ways of Bitcoin by creating their coins to rely on blockchain technology. But then, they are few cryptocurrency projects that don't rely on blockchain technology, yet still manage to solve their users’ problems efficiently.

There are a few forms of cryptocurrencies out there that do not rely on blockchain. Some of these include IOTA, Byteball, and Nano. These currencies use different protocols such as the case of IOTA relying on Tangle instead of a blockchain. This means it does not have any transaction fees and does not require miners to verify the transactions.

Another alternative is Hashgraph, which uses a DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) instead of blocks to store transactions. It also has no transaction fees and requires less computing power than blockchain to achieve consensus in transactions.

As the world continues to evolve, we see many companies and industries such as banking and healthcare firms, seeking ways to adopt the implementation of blockchain into their systems to reduce costs and better serve their customers and communities.

Nevertheless, they are some potential challenges to expect when seeking to implement blockchain into your business today. Some of these issues include:

• The issue of High Energy Consumption: Given the fact that computers must verify transactions which requires them to solve complex equations. Solving these equations uses energy and time and as such, there is a large cost associated with energy consumption. Additionally, because these computers must solve these equations for every transaction for it to be verified and recorded on the ledger, it can take a long time for transactions to be processed or even go through at all if there are too many active transactions on the network.

• Issue Of Regulatory Uncertainty: You would agree with me that even to date, one of the biggest challenges of blockchain technology is the uncertainty of its regulation in various parts of the world. In a world where regulation varies by country, it can be difficult to offer services worldwide and keep on top of changes in legislation. This is particularly challenging for start-ups that have limited resources, as they often cannot afford to hire dedicated legal counsel to stay informed on regulatory developments in different jurisdictions.

• There's Also an Issue Of Security: Data security is a top concern for any company, and the decentralized nature of blockchain means that there's no one point of failure or single entity to monitor. This has led many companies to adopt a multi-layer approach with three layers: data encryption at rest, data encryption in transit and data access controls.

• The Issue Of Integration: Since blockchain technology can be applied to so many different industries and use cases, it's an overwhelming task to figure out how to integrate it into your business. There's also a learning curve involved in understanding the nuances of how blockchain works and how it differs from other technologies. The scalability issue comes up because as more people use blockchain, there will be more transactions that need to be processed, which means transaction fees may go up.

• Lack of standards: This is another issue in its way because to make blockchain work, there needs to be a common language that everyone agrees on. You can't just let everyone come up with their way of doing things and expect that they'll all work together because they won't. Standards need to be set, and there needs to be a long-term plan for how those standards will evolve as the technology changes, or else it will never take off in any meaningful way.

Blockchain no doubt is the future of the internet, a system that makes fraud and inaccuracies virtually impossible, while also speeding up transactions and reducing costs. There has been a revolution from poor privacy and security level to a higher one, all thanks to this amazing technology called Blockchain.

Generally, this has been another interesting discussion, and I say Kudos to the organizers of this contest. Am inviting @nadiaturrina, @rmm31, and @dilialy to check out this contest.

Thanks for your time here.