According to the research conducted by Gartner, a business based on blockchain technologies will cost about $10 billion and will go into different sectors of the economy by 2022. The potential use of technology will vary from e-voting to managing medical records. So, it's about time we found out what the benefits of business blockchain technologies will bring.
For the first time, the term Blockchain appeared as the name of a distributed database based on the bitcoin cryptocurrency. Blockchain can serve both as a way of storing data and a digital register of transactions and contracts. Blockchain allows you to store many kinds of data including issued loans, property rights, data on health insurance, etc. The main difference of blockchain technology from others is that the registry is not stored in one place. For example, a traditional banking system uses a centralized database for storing data, while blockchain is a decentralized and open transaction log.
Digital records are combined into blocks, which are chronologically connected by a cryptographic encryption into a chain using complex mathematical algorithms. Each block is connected with the previous one and contains its own set of records. New blocks are added strictly to the end of the chain. Once the registry is updated and a new block is added to it, it can no longer be changed. Therefore, it is impossible to be forged. Besides, blockchain technology is very difficult to hack. The point is that the registry is updated on all computers of the system simultaneously. When someone is trying to make changes to the block, the system will report the non-compliance.
That sounds interesting and promising. Let's now look at the advantages of this technology.
Advantages of Blockchain Technology
New technologies always do their best to introduce some new benefits to the public and get noticed. The blockchain is not an exception. Here are some obvious advantages of blockchain technology:
advantages of blockchain technology
The main advantages of the blockchain technology
High level of blockchain security. Digital signature and a cryptographic encryption are aimed at providing a steady system of information recording.
Reduced hacking threat. Information that is simultaneously stored in multiple places can not be hacked or forged that easily.The original records can be immediately recovered from neighboring sources.
Increased transparency of operations. Banks and their corporate clients have an opportunity to receive almost real-time notifications about the completion of a payment or transaction, for example.
No payment for intermediaries' services. It is possible due to the fact that the system is decentralized.
Different levels of accessibility. The blockchain network can be open and accessible or private with limited membership.
Faster transactions. There is no need to include payment systems in the transaction process and, as a result, the processing speed of operations is increased and the cost for the end user is reduced.
Automatic reconciliation of accounts. As the authenticity of transactions is checked by the participants themselves, they also confirm their authenticity and form blocks of records, etc.
Blockchain in financial services
Leading US and European banks have already launched projects to use this technology. The international payment system Visa has also joined them, as it admits the possibility of faster and cheaper payments using blockchain technology.
Let's find out how blockchain works within the financial sector. First of all, blockchain in financial services is like a digital wallet, which allows you to make transfers. The structure of such a wallet includes objects like the wallet address, transactions, and blocks.
The wallet address is a unique identifier of the system that is used for receiving and sending money. It is a 160-bit hash. That's why the encrypted address looks like a set of letters and numbers. Here is an example of a wallet address in the Bitcoin network: 1BitforkXSxd1JpPwq4NzNwN47Ags1voYK.
Blockchain transactions are represented as a record in the NoSQL storage embedded in the blockchain wallet.
Blocks in blockchain store transactions and information about the hash of the previous block and the hash of the block. This allows you to create a chain, which is the basis of the technology.
We have useful informations for entrepreneurs who are planning to create product that will be able to handle payments.