Understanding Public Blockchain [Blockchain series]

Hello friends and TFC lovers. Welcome to my blog one again. I hope you enjoyed my last blog which was on private blockchain. Today I will like to build on the my last blog,I felt my lesson on blockchain will be incomplete if I don't touch the other types of blockchain and discuss about them extensively. So in today's blog,we will be discussing Public Blockchain before we then proceed to differentiate between them which might come up in subsequent blog. Let's enjoy this ride together.

What is a Public Blockchain

A public blockchain is a blockchain that is permissionless and open to all and sundry. What this means is that anyone can gain access to this type of blockchain or even join in as a node. The good thing about this blockchain is that once you have access to the the internet via your computer or mobile coupled with online data,then you're good to go and even validate blocks on the chain. There is no form of restriction.

This type of blockchain is highly decentralized. I hope you have not forgotten an important feature of a private blockchain which I mentioned in my last post...that it centralized and this is unlike the publicly chain we are discussing right now.

The public chain was introduced when Bitcoin came into the scene in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto who still remains a mystery till this day. This blockchain used the proof of work concensus although there have been so many changes over time. Now we have so many consensus algorithm which includes proof-of-stake,delegated proof-of-stake,proof of burn etc.

It is pertinent to mention that it is this first blockchain model that innovative developers worked on to develop the private blockchain and even the hybrid, although these tweaked blockchain has their own benefit which cannot be overlook. I would have loved to mention some of the benefits but for the sake of emphasis I would focus on the subject matter which is public blockchain.

Features of a Public Blockchain

In this section,we will be looking at some of the features of this public chain. Let's check the features below.

• Decentralized

This type of blockchain is highly decentralized such that anyone can contribute to the development of the blockchain without restriction or control by some contral authority. You can liken this system to a democratic system where power belongs to the people,in this case the nodes.

• Transparency

This is a very important feature of a public blockchain. Everything on the chain is transparent. Everyone has access to the same information that is why it is called a distributed ledger. So what Mr. A has as information is what Mr. B also has so it is very difficult to manipulate.

• Immutability

This is also a fascinating feature of a public blockchain. Immutability is the ability of something to remain unchange even for a very long period of time. Get this,any information that finds it way into the blockchain will remain like that for as long as the blockchain exist. It also means information cannot be manipulated or falsified.

• Elimination of Third party.

With the blockchain system, third parties are eliminated. This is very relevant when viewed from the financial standpoint. The need for banks in carrying out a direct transaction has been reduced to the bearest minimum and in most cases completely eliminated,such that you don't you don't have to pay certain fees to carry out transactions.

• Open

This system is open for all,such that everyone has access to the information stored on the blockchain.

Downsides

Scalability is one of the major downside of a public chain. The reason is not far-fetched just like I relayed in my last lesson. Since a public blockchain is open and not restricted,it accomodate a lot of people and as more people join the chain,the rate at which transaction will be validated and confirmed will suffer setbacks.

The speed at which transactions are confirmed will also be affected because many node will have to validate it unlike in the private chain where there are fewer participants which alway make it easy for transaction to be speedily validated or confirmed.

Lastly,the energy it takes to run a public blockchain is quite huge. There is a need for a lot of electricity especially when the algorithm in use is the proof-of-work algorithm. I would also like to acknowledged the fact that there is improvement as regards this in that the energy level required by a blockchain by the algorithm like Proof-of-stake is far lesser even though it's run on a public chain.

Conclusion

I believe I have been able to clearly explain this concept. There are still facts to be searched out and discussed about public chain,I must humbly submit that this is not all there is to this topic. I hope to clearly differentiate between a public and a private chain in my next post. Kindly stay tuned.
Thank you once again for your time.

Regards:
@lhorgic♥️