Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
The significant impact of cryptocurrency is inseparably linked with the blockchain technology, which is the key of Bitcoin and also the fundamental technique for other cryptocurrencies. According to blockchain adopted the distributed ledger technology and allowed the direct cryptocurrency transactions between buyer and seller to be saved digitally in a public-accessible distributed ledger permanently without any central authorization. A detailed flowchart provided by Blockgeek.com in their online free access guide that explains how blockchain technology works is available at: http:// blockgeeks.com/wp content/uploads/2016/09/infographics0517-01-1-1024x538.png.
Along with the rapid growth in the cryptocurrency market, there are now two alternative technologies that have been developed to outperform the fundamental blockchain, these are Tangle and Hashgraph. Please note that a detailed introduction and comparison of these two alternative technologies can be found in Tangle is based on the IOTA protocol and has the main feature of directed acyclic graph, it aims to achieve a faster machine to machine micro-payment system that requires no transaction fees.
Another technology that applies directed acyclic graph is Hashgraph and it uses gossip for
achieving consensus: a transaction is made when the participant shares all its information with a few random nodes in the network and every node gathers all received information along with new transaction information to pass on to multiple random nodes in the network and so on. Hashgraph was initially introduced in and is a patented technology held by Swirlds.
When Cryptocurrency Meets Big Data
The era of Big Data has brought overwhelming challenges along with immeasurable opportunities across the globe. The innovations and progressions of a broad range of subjects have been prompted by Big Data analytics, for instance, crime, causality analysis, energy, forecasting, and banking are few examples. Exhaustive evidence in indicated that Big Data analytics are assisting the banking sector with regard to security enhancement, risk management, customer relationship management and marketing, which have significantly optimized its operation efficiency
and profits.
Conclusions and Future Research
This paper has comprehensively introduced cryptocurrency and the key blockchain technology behind it, as well as provided a systematic review of the researches indicating the close interactions between Big Data and cryptocurrency.
We have found that the rapidly growing interests and attention of an emerging, tremendous, and valuable market like cryptocurrency come along with criticisms and misgivings. It provides the worldwide efficient, decentralized, peer to peer transaction system while retaining anonymity and privacy.
However, its digitalized and anonymity features also make it voucherable targets for cybercriminals, and less easily adoptable for the majority of people who lack of technological skills. The blockchain technology behind cryptocurrency has widely extended its capacities and was implemented on a variety
of subjects, such as smart contracts, data trading and management, governance, and digital ownership.