Core consensus of blockchain
broadly speaking, blockchain technology is a new distributed infrastructure and computing paradigm, which uses blockchain data structure to verify and store data, uses distributed node consensus algorithm to generate and update data, uses cryptography to ensure the security of data transmission and access, and uses intelligent contract composed of automated script code to program and operate data
as we all know, blockchain technology is an independent underlying architecture from bitcoin system. From the perspective of architecture model, it is a set of distributed ledger, which is naturally used for bookkeeping
in the blockchain technology, if you want to generate accounting records, you need to have the transaction and flow of funds. Therefore, in the initial blockchain technology, the cryptocurrency corresponding to the main network is used as circulation goods, and the circulation transaction records of cryptocurrency between the accounts of the main network of the blockchain will be recorded on the main network
different from other transaction record databases, transaction records on the main network of blockchain technology will be recorded on all block nodes (i.e. all data blocks) in the main network, which is the so-called decentralization principle. That is to say, in blockchain technology, there is no central database to store all records, Every block on the chain has the transaction data of the whole chain, that is to say, every data block is the center
another feature of blockchain technology is that it can't be tampered with, because every transaction on the blockchain will be recorded in all blocks on the chain, so no single data block can change the record. Even if you change it, all other data blocks will also record real data, and each group of data can be traced back to the first time
because of these characteristics of blockchain technology, after the advent of bitcoin, blockchain has also attracted a lot of attention, and many people also began to want to use blockchain technology to make a centerless, traceable and unchangeable data, so as to ensure the credibility of the data
however, blockchain technology also faces many problems, such as single application scenario, non modifiable original error data, non recoverable currency stolen by hackers, etc.
From the perspective of technology and architecture, I will tell you my understanding of blockchain in common language
what is blockchain? In a word, blockchain is a storage system. To be more specific, blockchain is a distributed storage system without an administrator and each node has all the data
What are the common storage systems like
first, how to ensure high availability
the common storage system usually uses "rendancy" to solve the problem of high availability. As shown in the figure above, if the data can be copied into several copies and rendant to multiple places, high availability can be guaranteed. The data in one place is hung, and there is data in other places. For example, the master-slave cluster of MySQL is the same principle, and the raid of disk is also the same principle
two points need to be emphasized in this place are: data rendancy often leads to consistency problems
1. For example, in the master-slave cluster of MySQL, there is actually a delay in reading and writing, which means there is a inconsistency in reading and writing in a short period of time. This is a side effect of data rendancy
The second point is that data rendancy often reces the efficiency of writing, because data synchronization also consumes resources. If you add two slave libraries, the write efficiency will be affected. The common storage system is to use rendancy to ensure the high availability of dataso the second question, ordinary storage system, can write more
the answer is yes, for example, take this graph as an example:
in fact, MySQL can do a master-slave synchronization of al masters, master-slave synchronization of al masters, two nodes can be written at the same time. If you want to do a multi room multi live data center, in fact, multi room multi live data synchronization. What we should emphasize here is that multi-point writing often leads to the consistency problem of writing conflicts. Take MySQL as an example, suppose that the attribute of a table is self incrementing ID, then the data in the database is 1234 now. If one of the nodes writes and inserts a piece of data, it may become 5, and then these 5 pieces of data are synchronized to another master node, Before synchronization, if another write node inserts a piece of data, a piece of data with self incrementing ID of 5 will be generated. Then, after the generation, synchronize to another node, and the synchronized data will conflict with the two local 5's after it arrives, which will lead to synchronization failure and write consistency conflict. This problem will occur in the case of multi-point writing
how to ensure consistency in multi-point writing
the reform "Swan class" gives you more technical work
1. Blockchain links
as the name suggests, blockchain is a chain composed of blocks. Each block is divided into block head and block body (including transaction data). The block head includes the prevhash value (also known as hash value) of the previous block used to realize the block link and the random number (nonce) used to calculate the mining difficulty. The hash value of the previous block is actually the hash value of the head of the previous block, and the random number calculation rule determines which miner can obtain the right to record the block
2. Consensus mechanism
blockchain is accompanied by the birth of bitcoin, which is the basic technology architecture of bitcoin. Blockchain can be understood as an Internet-based decentralized accounting system. A decentralized digital currency system like bitcoin requires the consistency of accounting of honest nodes without a central node, which needs blockchain to complete. Therefore, the core of blockchain technology is a consensus mechanism to reach a consensus on the legitimacy of transactions between indivials without mutual trust without central control
there are four main types of consensus mechanisms in blockchain: pow, POS, dpos and distributed consistency algorithm
3. Unlocking script
script is an important technology to realize automatic verification and contract execution on blockchain. Every output of every transaction does not point to an address in the strict sense, but to a script. A script is like a set of rules that constrain how the receiver can spend the asset locked on the output
the validation of transactions also depends on scripts. At present, it depends on two kinds of scripts: Lock script and unlock script. Locking script is a condition added to the output transaction, which is realized by a script language and located in the output of the transaction. The unlocking script corresponds to the locking script. Only when the conditions required by the locking script are met can the assets corresponding to the script be spent, which is located in the input of the transaction. Many flexible conditions can be expressed by script language. Interpretation script is similar to the "virtual machine" in our programming field, which runs in every node of the blockchain network in a distributed way
4. Transaction rules
blockchain transaction is not only the basic unit of a block, but also the actual effective content recorded by the blockchain. A blockchain transaction can be a transfer, or the deployment of smart contracts and other transactions
as far as bitcoin is concerned, a transaction refers to a single payment transfer. The transaction rules are as follows:
1) the input and output of the transaction cannot be empty
2) for each input of a transaction, if its corresponding utxo output can be found in the current transaction pool, the transaction will be rejected. Because the current transaction pool is the transaction not recorded in the blockchain, and each input of the transaction should come from the confirmed utxo. If it is found in the current trading pool, it is Shuanghua trading
3) for each input in a transaction, the corresponding output must be utxo
4) each input unlocking script must verify the compliance of the transaction together with the corresponding output locking script
5. Transaction priority
the priority of blockchain transaction is determined by the blockchain protocol rules. For bitcoin, the priority of a transaction to be included in a block is determined by the time when the transaction is broadcast to the network and the amount of the transaction. With the increase of transaction broadcast time on the network and the increase of transaction chain age, the priority of transaction will be improved and eventually be included by the block. For Ethereum, the priority of the transaction is also related to the transaction fee that the publisher is willing to pay. The higher the transaction fee that the publisher is willing to pay, the higher the priority that the transaction is included in the block
6. Merkle proof
the original application of Merkle proof is bitcoin, which was described and created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. Bitcoin blockchain uses Merkle proof to store transactions in each block. So that the transaction can not be tampered with, but also easy to verify whether the transaction is included in a specific block
7. RLP
RLP (recursive length prefix) is one of the main encoding methods of object serialization in Ethereum. Its purpose is to encode the sequence of arbitrary nested binary data.
e to the high network delay in peer-to-peer network, the transaction order observed by each node can not be completely consistent. Therefore, the blockchain system needs to design a mechanism to reach a consensus on the sequence of transactions that occur in the same time. This algorithm to reach consensus on the order of transactions in a time window is called consensus mechanism
-- chainknow
the biggest consensus of blockchain is to make money
there will be a process for the advancement of blockchain consensus. In the current flood and famine period, making money based on cognition and circle is still in consensus 1.0 stage. Fortunately, its size is not enough to affect the overall situation of the world economic structure, and the cost of supervision and policy intervention is low. In the large community of blockchain, more roles need to be involved, In particular, the government with service functions should not be absent, and the people in the community should not act like frightened birds, independent from the outside world
the bustling blockchain communities are not forests, but bird nests in a few trees at most. They chatter in order to grab food. Even if there is a third-class wind, everyone will be scattered. If you really want to dream of building a forest, you should bravely go down the tree, dig ditches and divert water
in the blockchain system, there is no centralized bookkeeping institution like a bank, so it is very important to ensure the consistency of each transaction on all bookkeeping nodes, that is, to make the whole network reach a consensus. The consensus mechanism solves this problem
at present, the main consensus mechanisms are workload proof mechanism POW and equity proof mechanism POS
POW determines your chances of getting bookkeeping rights by evaluating your workload. The greater the workload, the more likely you will get this bookkeeping opportunity
POS determines your chances of getting bookkeeping rights by evaluating the number and ration of tokens you hold. This is similar to the stock dividend system, holding a relatively large number of shares can get more dividends
the principle of dpos is similar to that of POS, except that some "deputies to the National People's Congress" are selected. The main difference from POS is that the node elects several agents, which are verified and recorded by the agents
with the development of technology, more advanced consensus mechanisms may emerge in the future.
blockchain is not only the core technology behind bitcoin, but also the infrastructure supporting bitcoin. Therefore, when talking about the consensus of blockchain, we must talk about the consensus of bitcoin
the core breakthrough of bitcoin is to reach a consensus on transaction events in the case of decentralization, that is, to reach an agreement on the effectiveness of a transaction without a central organization<
bitcoin's method to achieve this consensus mainly includes two parts:
incentive; That is, each block generates a certain amount of new bitcoin to motivate participants
introce external resources to ensure safety; That is, to ensure the security of consensus through a large number of external calculations, that is, proof of power
this is also the method adopted by almost all POW currencies. For example, dent, Wright coin, sand coin, dog coin and so on.