Illustration of blockchain

The strict definition of blockchain refers to the distributed database technology that multiple nodes in peer-to-peer network jointly maintain a continuously growing list ledger constructed by time stamp and orderly record data blocks through consensus mechanism based on cryptography technology. This technical solution allows any number of nodes in the participating system to calculate and record all the information exchange data in the system in a period of time to a data block through cryptography algorithm, and generate the fingerprint of the data block for linking the next data block and checking. All participating nodes in the system jointly determine whether the record is true

blockchain is a technical solution similar to NoSQL (non relational database). It is not a specific technology, and can be implemented through many programming languages and architectures. There are many ways to realize blockchain, including pow (proof of work), POS (proof of stake), dpos (delegate proof of stake), etc

the concept of blockchain was first proposed in the paper "bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system" by indivials (or groups) who call themselves Satoshi Nakamoto. Therefore, bitcoin can be regarded as the first application of blockchain in the field of financial payment

no matter how big the system or how small the website is, there is a database behind it. So who will maintain this database? In general, who is responsible for the operation of the network or system, then who is responsible for the maintenance. If it is wechat database, it must be maintained by Tencent team, and Taobao database is maintained by Alibaba team. We must think that this way is natural, but blockchain technology is not

if we think of the database as a book, for example, Alipay is a typical account book. Any change of data is bookkeeping. We can think of database maintenance as a very simple way of accounting. In the world of blockchain, everyone in the blockchain system has the opportunity to participate in bookkeeping. The system will select the fastest and best bookkeeper in a period of time, maybe within ten seconds or ten minutes. The bookkeeper will record the changes of the database and the account book in a block. We can think of this block as a page. After the system confirms that the records are correct, the system will record the changes of the database and the account book in a block, It will link the fingerprint of the past account book to this paper, and then send this paper to everyone else in the whole system. Then, over and over again, the system will look for the next person with fast and good bookkeeping, and everyone else in the system will get a of the whole ledger. This means that everyone as like as two peas in the system is called Blockchain. It is also called distributed account technology. P>

as like as two peas (computer) have identical accounting books, and everyone has the same rights, they will not collapse e to the loss of contact or downtime of a single person. As like as two peas, the data is transparent and everyone can see what changes are in every account. Its very interesting feature is that the data can't be tampered with. Because the system will automatically compare, it will think that the same number of books with the largest number are real books, and a small number of books with different numbers are false books. In this case, it's meaningless for anyone to tamper with his own account book, because unless you can tamper with most nodes in the whole system. If there are only five or ten nodes in the whole system, it may be easy to do so. However, if there are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of nodes and they are distributed in any corner of the Internet, unless someone can control most computers in the world, it is unlikely to tamper with such a large block chain

combined with the definition of blockchain, we think that we must have the following four elements to be called public blockchain technology. If we only have the first three elements, we will consider it as private blockchain Technology (private chain)

1, peer-to-peer network (power equivalence, physical point-to-point connection)

2, verifiable data structure (verifiable PKC system, non tampering database)

3, distributed consensus mechanism (Solving Byzantine general problem, solving double payment)

4 Game design of Nash equilibrium (cooperation is the strategy of evolutionary stability)

combined with the definition of blockchain, blockchain will realize four main characteristics: decentralized, trustless, collective maintenance and reliable database. And the other two will be derived from the four characteristics  Features: open source  Privacy. If a system does not have these characteristics, it can not be regarded as an application based on blockchain technology

trustworthiness: there is no need to trust each other when participating in the data exchange between each node in the whole system. The operation rules of the whole system are open and transparent, and all data contents are also open. Therefore, within the specified rule range and time range of the system, nodes cannot and cannot cheat other nodes

collective maintenance: the data blocks in the system are maintained by all the nodes with maintenance function in the whole system, and these nodes with maintenance function can be participated by anyone

reliable database: the whole system will enable each participating node to obtain a of the complete database in the form of sub databases. Unless more than 51% of the nodes in the whole system can be controlled at the same time, the modification of the database on a single node is invalid, and the data content on other nodes cannot be affected. Therefore, the more nodes and computing power in the system, the higher the data security in the system

Open Source: since the operation rules of the whole system must be open and transparent, the whole system must be open source for the program

Privacy Protection: since there is no need to trust each other between nodes, there is no need to disclose the identity between nodes, and the privacy of each participating node in the system is protected

If you want to understand the application of blockchain, you can refer to many books and opinions, such as illustrated blockchain, blockchain: reshaping the economy and the world, blueprint and guide of new economy, and articles of coin'an community, including a detailed understanding of the platform of coin'an community, with great strength

in 2008, in his paper bitcoin: a peer-to-peer e-cash system published by Nakamoto, he first proposed the idea of blockchain and encrypted digital currency. Starting from bitcoin, blockchain has become the underlying technology of various digital currencies

2. Working principle of blockchain:

1. Basic concepts include:
(1) transaction: one operation will change the account status once, such as adding a record
(2) block: records the transaction and status data within a specified time, which is a consensus and preservation of the current account status
(3) chain: it is composed of a series of blocks in chronological order, which is the log record of the whole state change
if you understand the working concept of blockchain, it is not difficult to understand its working principle. Suppose there is a distributed data logbook, which can only be added, deleted or changed. Its structure is a linear chain formed by a series of "blocks" (which is also the source of the name of "blockchain"), and new data needs to be added, It must be put into a new block. The maintenance node can propose a new block, but it must go through a certain consensus mechanism to reach an agreement on the final selected block

2. Take bitcoin as an example to see the working principle of blockchain

the block of bitcoin is divided into block head and block body< The core advantages and characteristics of blockchain are as follows:

3.

1. The verification, accounting, storage, maintenance and transmission of blockchain data are all based on the distributed system structure. There is no centralized hardware or management organization, and the rights and obligations of any node are equal, The data blocks in the system are jointly maintained by the nodes with maintenance function in the whole system
2. Open and transparent
the system is open, in addition to the private information of all parties to the transaction is encrypted, the data of the blockchain is open to all, and anyone can query the blockchain data and develop related applications through the open interface, so the information of the whole system is highly transparent
3. Security
blockchain adopts consensus based specifications and Protocols (such as a set of open and transparent algorithms) to enable all nodes in the whole system to exchange data freely and safely in a de trusted environment, so that the trust in "people" is changed into the trust in machines, and any human intervention does not work
4. Information cannot be tampered with
once the information is verified and added to the blockchain, it will be stored permanently. Unless more than 51% (almost impossible) nodes in the system can be controlled at the same time, the modification of the database on a single node is invalid, so the data stability and reliability of the blockchain are extremely high
5. Anonymity
because the exchange between nodes follows a fixed algorithm, their data interaction does not need trust (the program rules in the blockchain will judge whether the activity is effective by themselves), so the counterparties do not need to let the counterparties generate trust by disclosing their identities, which is very helpful for credit accumulation

1. Public chain: anyone can participate in the use and maintenance, and can obtain the effective confirmation of the blockchain. Public chain is the earliest blockchain and the most widely used blockchain at present, such as bitcoin blockchain. The information is completely public

if the licensing mechanism is introced, it includes private chain and alliance chain
2. Private chain: a company or indivial only uses the blockchain technology and enjoys the write permission of the blockchain, and the information is not disclosed. At present, conservative giants (traditional finance) want to experiment with private blockchain, and the application procts of private blockchain are still groping
3. Alliance chain: it is a blockchain controlled by multiple organizations, which is between the public chain and the existing chain. The use of the chain is managed with authority, which can be controlled by the manager, and also open to others according to the manager's wishes
in addition, according to the different use scenarios and purposes of blockchain, it can be divided into currency chain for the purpose of digital currency, property chain for the purpose of recording property rights, and crowdfunding chain for the purpose of crowdfunding

take Maotai liquor as an example:

distillery address, proction workshop, operation staff, inspector, delivery time, transportation vehicle information and driver information,

liquor year, raw material source, raw material supplier, storage warehouse number, raw material transportation vehicle and driver information,

all information can be accurately traced, permanently recorded and tampered with

the above information can be easily verified

2. Food safety issues as early as last November, Wal Mart has cooperated with IBM to track the source of food by using blockchain technology, so as to ensure the safety of food and increase the circulation of food to rece costs. For Wal Mart and other large supermarkets, it took a few days to investigate the source of problem food, After using this technology, only one item of proct information is needed to achieve accurate traceability, and important information such as food origin, inspector, supplier, logistics and transportation can quickly find problems in a few minutes. Currently, procts tracked by blockchain include packaging procts from the United States and pork from China

3. Information security

blockchain technology is promoting an information security technology revolution. (1) identity protection PKI is a common public key encryption technology in e-mail, message application, website and other communication applications. However, since the implementation of most PKI, the centralized trusted third party certification authority (CA) is used to issue, activate and store user certificates. Hackers can attack PKI to fake user identity or crack encrypted information

certcoin is the first PKI implementation of blockchain, which comes from MIT, removes the centralized authentication center, and uses blockchain as a distributed ledger for domain name and public key

pomcor company: blockchain PKI implementation path: keep the authentication center, and use blockchain to store the hash value of issued and activated certificates. Users can verify the authenticity of certificates through decentralized and transparent sources, and can also improve the network access performance through local authentication of secret key and signature based on blockchain

(2) data integrity protection

guardtime developed a secret key free signature architecture (Ksi) based on blockchain technology to replace the secret key based data authentication technology. Ksi stores the hash table of the original data and files on the blockchain, runs the hash algorithm to verify other copies, and compares the results with the data stored in the blockchain. Any data tampering will be found quickly because the original hash table is stored in millions of nodes

(3) key infrastructure protection

the "Achilles heel" of the Internet, DDoS has entered the TB era, DDoS is still the simplest weapon for hackers to bring down the big target with low cost, DNS service is the primary target for hackers to carry out large-scale destruction, but blockchain technology is expected to fundamentally solve the problem

blockchain makes hacker attacks lose focus. Nebulis is developing a distributed DNS system, which uses Ethereum blockchain and interstellar Internet file system (IPFs, the distributed substitute of HTTP) to register and resolve domain names. The biggest weakness of DNS is caching, which makes DDoS attacks possible. It is also the bane of the centralized government's censorship of social networks and manipulation of DNS registration. A highly transparent and distributed DNS system can effectively prevent any entity, including the government, from arbitrarily manipulating records

from the use of physical transactions, to physical currency and credit currency, and then to the rise of bitcoin network, more and more people are aware of the distributed ledger blockchain technology behind it, and graally apply it in many scenarios other than digital currency

(2) cross border payment and settlement: realize point-to-point transaction, rece intermediate fees

transfer and payment. At present, the most mature application of blockchain technology is payment and transfer. Blockchain technology can avoid complicated systems, save the process of inter-bank reconciliation and review, and accelerate the settlement speed; Virtual currency can rece transaction costs without the intervention of clearing house. Different countries have different clearing proceres. It takes two or three days for a single remittance to arrive, which is inefficient and accounts for a large proportion of funds in transit. No longer through the third party, through the blockchain technology to form point-to-point payment. By eliminating the link of the third-party institutions, we can make full day payment, real-time payment, withdraw cash quickly and rece the hidden cost, which helps to avoid the capital risk. It is timely and convenient

value transfer between point-to-point, control and verify physical bills or central system; Intermediaries will be eliminated and human intervention reced. With the improvement of efficiency, financing channels are more unblocked, risks are lower, and multiple parties benefit

(4) securities issuance and Trading: realize quasi real-time asset transfer, accelerate the speed of transaction clearing

the application of blockchain technology can make the process of securities trading more concise, transparent and fast, rece the plication of IT system, and improve the efficiency of market operation. For stocks, blockchain can eliminate paper and pen or electronic form records, rece human errors in trading, and improve the transparency and traceability of trading platform. Citigroup and Nasdaq cooperate to promote blockchain applications

(5) customer credit investigation and anti fraud: rece the cost of legal compliance, prevent financial crimes

the customer information and transaction records recorded in the blockchain help banks identify abnormal transactions and effectively prevent fraud. The technical characteristics of blockchain can change the existing credit reference system, which can be implemented in banks