Forget about Bitcoin. Blokcheyn is important

Imagine that you walk along one of the many busy streets of a large city, and suddenly from the sky falling piano. In the eyes of astonished people it splits exactly in the middle of the street.

Then, in the same moment, everyone who watched this painting without the slightest delay is connected to a lie detector and asked to describe exactly what they saw. They all tell the same story word for word.

Is there in this case any doubt that the piano really fell from the sky?

This is the principle underlying the blokcheyna - a powerful invention, which many misunderstand, despite the fact that this technology has the potential to seriously change our interaction to the digital world. Most people are familiar with blokcheynom solely as to the technology underlying the Bitcoin. Experts from different fields admire its potentials. About a year ago, Marc Andreessen, being one of the old-timers among venture capitalists of Silicon Valley, described the model of distributed consensus blokcheyna as the overriding invention since the days of the Internet.

Blokcheyn, in essence, is a distributed accounting book records the events in the digital world. This system is distributed and available to multiple users. Entries for it can be made only with the consent of the majority of users. And yet, once the recorded information has never can not be changed or erased. Blokcheyn Bitcoin contains accurate and reliable information about all ever committed bitcoin transactions.

If blokcheyn as simple as just described above, why talk about it still remain the prerogative of the freaks and geeks technology kriptoanarhistov?

The problem is that for most people the concept blokcheyna itself inextricably linked with cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which is really complicated and very controversial. Some believe Bitcoin silly fad that is destined to die, buried with the money a decent number of people. Others believe that the currency is able to bypass all existing in the world currency system, considering Bitcoin herald a new era of democracy in the world of finance. In recent years the rate of Bitcoin relative to other currencies fluctuated very boldly. Nor can it be denied that Bitcoin has contributed to the development of multi-billion dollar market of anonymous purchases, including where bought and sold illegal substances and weapons.

What can I say - not unique, that's for sure. Man from participating in the debate on these topics is disconcerting.

But here's the thing: blokcheyn itself surprisingly unique thing. Regardless of the opinions of different people about Bitcoin, almost everyone agrees that its fundamental technology works flawlessly. With it, anyone can not only keep the money, but also completely transparent to make money transactions, without the need to trust each other, or any centralized intermediary.

In the history of the piano, witnessed his fall were just witnesses from the street. In blokcheyne, such witnesses confirming the transaction to record them in blokcheyn are computer components, and computationally geographically isolated from each other. With regard to analog polygraph, these units demonstrate "proof of perfect work" - a cryptographic process of proving that a computer is properly calculated the correct result. Fake events blokcheyne would be tantamount to an attempt to make more than half of the people who saw a piano fell to lie, though exactly the same and in the same time, not having any opportunity to coordinate in advance their lies.

To realize this in practice is virtually impossible.

All this can have an incredible effect - people will be able to know with certainty what is happening in the digital world. To date, every Internet transaction is based on a central institution that is trusted. It does not matter what you do online. Every time you have to rely on someone who will tell you the correct information: whether it is a bank, report data on your checking account, or a message from your email provider that the letter was delivered or your antivirus, assures that the security of your computer all right.

But actually, there is always a certain proportion of the probability that any information provider reports false information, it does not matter, with malicious intent or by mistake. That is why the Internet - security today in such poor condition that we trust the services that can be hacked or fall under the control of hackers. But we increasingly trust the Internet your most valuable personal information.

Blokcheynu afford to change all that. It sounds unbelievable, but access to this system of distributed consensus, it allows you to create a true chain of records of past and present developments in the digital world.

It is essential that it does so without the intrusion into our private space. You can fix the fact that the event happened, and even the fact that it happened properly, without disclosing confidential information on the subject or parties participating. This explains why Bitcoin is so good for the black market, because despite the fact that by its very nature is an open system, its users can remain completely anonymous.

But, ultimately, the positive aspects are far outweigh the negative. For example, one of the key ways to use blokcheyna - a "smart contracts". You can rely on a decentralized network, which confirms that the contract of any kind has been executed properly (execution can be carried out in automatic mode), without disclosing any confidential information about the participants or the transaction itself. Ethereum team specifically for this purpose, has created its own scripting language. The importance of this for a trusted and transparent business transactions can not be overestimated.

The financial world is finally looked beyond the Bitcoin currency component: some of the largest banks in the world have begun to study the possibility of applying blokcheyna technology. Estonia, which ensures the safety of its banking infrastructure largely using blokcheyn can boast the lowest level of credit card fraud in the entire euro area. And those startups like Bitreserve provide completely free online transaction without the volatility and risks that are inherent in Bitcoin.

We can look even wider: imagine prospects blokcheyna use to store medical records, during the voting, in the management of the account of property rights, the registration of marriages and judicial proceedings. Over time, each data set and each digital transaction may leave a unique, like a fingerprint, footprint, making it possible to audit any digital event, without violating anyone's privacy.

In this sense, if blokcheyn fully reveal its potential, it will be able to generate a level of democracy and an objective "truth" in the digital world, on which even our physical world was unable to. It also promises a future in which no one will be the absolute power on the Internet, and where no one can falsify information on past or current events. All of this is that the only possible future, but with each passing day, more and more smart people who know the technology, joining this system, believing that one day all of what we will be talking here today possible.