How to understand blockchain
blockchain refers to the technical solution of collective maintenance of a reliable database through centralization and distrust in the past, and it is a technical way for the whole people to participate in bookkeeping. Previous bookkeeping methods were all centralized and needed centralized intermediary, whether it was traditional government, financial institutions, notarization institutions or emerging e-commerce platform and online payment platform
in economic hypothesis, information is sufficient. In fact, it is precisely because of insufficient information that there are very large intermediaries. The existence of intermediaries increases the transaction cost and raises the transaction threshold. In essence, blockchain technology is a large-scale collaboration tool. It makes direct value transfer possible by using pure technology for the first time, and continues the trend of Internet decentralization and disintermediation. Disintermediated blockchain technology will greatly subvert the information intermediary instry
blockchain technology is the basic technology for building bitcoin data structure and encrypted transmission of transaction information, which realizes the issue and transaction of bitcoin. The core of blockchain technology is that all the current participating nodes jointly maintain the transaction and database, so that the transaction is based on the principle of cryptography rather than trust, so that any agreed parties can directly carry out payment transactions without the participation of a third party
technically, a block is a data structure for recording transactions, reflecting the capital flow of a transaction. In the system, the transaction blocks are connected to form a main chain, and all the nodes participating in the calculation record the main chain or part of the main chain
a block contains the following three parts: transaction information, hash formed by the previous block and random number. Transaction information is the task data carried by the block, including the private keys of both parties, the number of transactions, the digital signature of electronic currency, etc; The hash hash formed by the previous block is used to connect the blocks and realize the sequence of past transactions; Random number is the core of the transaction. All nodes compete to calculate the answer of the random number. The node that gets the answer the fastest generates a new block and broadcasts it to all nodes for updating, so as to complete a transaction.
blockchain is an important concept of bitcoin, which is essentially a decentralized database and the underlying technology of bitcoin. Blockchain is a series of data blocks generated by cryptography. Each data block contains the information of a bitcoin network transaction, which is used to verify the validity of the information (anti-counterfeiting) and generate the next block
let's talk about the social or economic significance of blockchain. In fact, many of the previous technologies were devoted to "proctivity". For example, artificial intelligence is a kind of progress in proctivity. The blockchain, which has greatly improved the proction relations, is committed to the proction relations. So why do you say that
because the so-called proction relationship is actually how to do business between people and business partners. And these things, originally, are in the cognitive process between people, and there is no special program to program or quantify it
for example, if you and I are good friends now, we can do business. If someone stirs up our relationship and we are not good friends, we will not do business. Even if we can make money in business, we will not do business because there is no trust between us
as for blockchain, it is actually because the data is authenticated by all nodes and backed up at the same time, so my data is as real as possible and can't be tampered with. In this case, if you believe my data, you can make a program on this basis, and then use the data to make what kind of business contract, what kind of service, what kind of service, and what kind of service, what kind of service, what kind of service, what kind of service, what kind of service, what kind of service, what kind of service, etc This "proction relationship" of commercial cooperation is programmed. In this way, we believe in the data and the program compiled by the algorithm. Because you believe in the data and the program, you can develop all kinds of apps in the program. These apps are the proction relations and what business to do. This is: blockchain is actually a reconstruction of "proction relationship".
Blockchain is a kind of technology, which solves the core "trust" problem in the market economy and reces the trust cost between strangers to a very low level
there is one crucial thing in the market economy, which is "trust". Without trust, no deal can be established. When you go to LAICHANG to buy vegetables, if you don't believe that the pesticide content in vegetable is up to the standard, you won't trade with that dealer; If you buy a bottle of water in a small shop, the clerk will not sell you the water if he doesn't believe that the money you give is real
the traditional small-scale peasant economy is acquaintance economy, and the transaction scale is limited to people who are familiar with each other nearby. If an acquaintance deceives you, he will lose your social relationship and damage his reputation in the whole circle of acquaintances. We believe that acquaintances are less likely to cheat us than strangers
therefore, once we are beyond the scope of acquaintances, we need to use a high cost to identify whether a stranger will cheat me and how to avoid the risk of being cheated. This situation will hinder the transaction and restrict the transaction
in addition, different races, nationalities, cultures, religious beliefs and so on will naturally have this kind of trust problem
in the market economy, why can there be so many transactions between strangers? Because of the birth of a new mechanism to solve the problem of trust in strangers
so far, the most important mechanism to solve the trust problem is the "trust intermediary" organization and mode
as long as you and strangers trust a third-party organization, the trust problem between you can be solved through this third-party organization
this third-party organization, we call it trust intermediary. Both the government and the bank are trust intermediaries
you can sell the goods you have worked hard to proce to a stranger in exchange for a stack of RMB banknotes. It's because the credit of the note issuing bank and the guarantee of the authority of the government guarantee the currency value and effectiveness of the banknotes. Otherwise, sell things, in exchange for a few ordinary paper, who would like to
in the era of global village and Internet, the people who buy your things may be strangers who will not meet and thousands of miles away. Trust is lower, so Alipay assumes the role of trust intermediation. Buyers first pay the goods to Alipay's account. When they receive the goods, they confirm that they are OK, then they agree to sell the goods to the seller. Taobao and other e-commerce have been booming rapidly in just over ten years
trust intermediary is in a central position in the transaction system. All transactions should solve the trust problem through it
However, the cost of trust intermediary itself is often hugeas a trust intermediary, how much transaction tax does the government charge each year? What is the most profitable instry? Financial services. The annual profits of Alipay's ant suit are over ten billion. p> What does this mean? Both sides of the market actually pay a huge trust cost
if there is any way to cancel or greatly rece the trust cost, the transaction cost of the general public can be reced, and the profits can be greatly increased
so in the Internet era, blockchain technology is on the stage
it allows the trading party to get rid of the intermediary, solve the problem of trust among strangers, and greatly rece the cost of trust
the blockchain can be expanded on a large scale, the data is open and transparent, the data of each client is consistent, and even if some clients are destroyed, the data security will not be affected. These highly reliable technical features can solve the trust problem of strangers with low cost
this technology can be extended to all fields that can be digitized, such as digital currency, payment and clearing, digital bills, proof of rights and interests, credit reference, government services, medical records, etc
in the medium and long term, blockchain will be a revolutionary technology, which will bring about great social changes like the existing Internet, and has great investment value and money making opportunities
in the future, the companies that can combine blockchain with different scenarios to promote applications may be the next group of bat, the next Google, Microsoft and apple
as the first practical application of blockchain technology, bitcoin has been widely accepted and used all over the world. Millions of users and tens of thousands of merchants have accepted the payment of bitcoin as a digital currency, and the exchange value of bitcoin as a currency is growing. Even e to the consensus that the total amount is fixed and the long-term value is bullish, bitcoin has become a hedge asset similar to gold, and the price has skyrocketed
1. Blockchain is a distributed database (system) placed in a non secure environment
2. The blockchain uses cryptography to ensure that the existing data cannot be tampered with
3, the blockchain uses consensus algorithm to reach consensus on new data
the system with the above three properties is blockchain.
the core of blockchain technology is that all participating nodes jointly maintain the transaction and database, which makes the transaction based on the principle of cryptography rather than trust, so that any agreed parties can directly carry out payment transactions without the participation of a third party< br />?
technically, a block is a data structure for recording transactions, reflecting the capital flow of a transaction. In the system, the blocks of the transactions that have been reached are connected together to form a main chain, and all the nodes participating in the calculation record the main chain or part of the main chain. A block contains the following three parts: transaction information, hash formed by the previous block, and random number. Transaction information is the task data carried by the block, including the private keys of both parties, the number of transactions, the digital signature of electronic currency, etc; The hash hash formed by the previous block is used to connect the blocks and realize the sequence of past transactions; Random number is the core of the transaction. All miners compete to calculate the answer of the random number. The node that gets the answer the fastest generates a new block and broadcasts it to all nodes for updating, so as to complete a transaction
1.1 what is a blockchain
blockchain is a technical solution to collectively maintain a reliable database through centralization and de trust in the past. This technical solution mainly allows any number of nodes in the participating system to generate a series of data blocks by using cryptographic methods. Each data block contains all the information exchange data of the system in a certain period of time, and generates a data fingerprint to verify the validity of its information and link to the next database block< br />?
generally speaking, blockchain technology refers to a way for the whole people to participate in bookkeeping. There is a database behind all the systems, that is, a big ledger. So it's very important who keeps this account book. At present, whose system is responsible for bookkeeping, the account book of each bank is the account book of each bank, and the account book of each bank is the account book of Ali. But now in the blockchain system, everyone in the system can have the opportunity to participate in bookkeeping. If there are new transaction data changes in a certain period of time, everyone in the system can make bookkeeping. The system will judge the fastest and best bookkeeper in this period, write the recorded content into the account book, and send the content of the account book to all other people in the system for backup. In this way, everyone in the system has a complete account book. As a result, the data becomes very secure. Tamperers need to modify more than half of the system node data at the same time to truly tamper with the data. The cost of such tampering is so high that it is almost impossible. For example, bitcoin has been running for more than seven years, and countless hackers around the world have tried to attack bitcoin, but so far there have been no trading errors. It can be considered that bitcoin blockchain has been proved to be a safe and reliable system< br />?
1.2 why is there blockchain innovation
human beings need to communicate in the process of activities, and communication is based on information. In the past, information circulation was not convenient enough to meet the information needs of market participants, so the intermediary and center were born. This centralized system has the problems of high cost, low efficiency, scattered value, "information island" and unsafe data storage. However, e to technical and environmental factors, this system still continues to operate for many years until the emergence of the Internet. The starting point of the first generation Internet is TCP / IP protocol, which is to implement the open code of peer-to-peer transmission of information in a unified format of all nodes on the network, and to program, protocol and execute the basic values of freedom and equality needed by the global unified market. Internet eliminates the middle chain of low value and high cost, and realizes the low cost and high efficiency of global information transmission by decentralization< br />?< However, the first generation Internet did not solve the credit problem of information. The activities that can be decentralized on the Internet must be those that do not need credit endorsement, and those that need credit guarantee must be those that are centralized and participated by third-party intermediaries. As a result, Internet technology, which is unable to establish global credit, has encountered great obstacles in its progress - people can not participate in any value exchange activities on the Internet in a decentralized way. In order to realize value exchange, people still need the third-party intermediary (such as bank, clearing, exchange) based on credit. There are still some problems in the global centralized credit system, such as high operating cost, low efficiency and vulnerability to attack. For example, the legal currencies of different countries have different credit values and different clearing systems, which increase the cost of Global trade< br />?
therefore, what the second generation Internet must break through is: how to decentralize the establishment of global credit? So that the value transfer is also low-cost and efficient. We need to create a kind of technology in the Internet, which can also engage in value exchange activities on the premise that people can't trust each other, so as to achieve real decentralization and go to the third-party intermediary, and realize the transformation from information internet to value Internet
1.3 application of blockchain
Bubi blockchain has been applied to equity, supply chain, points and other fields, and is carrying out experiments and application tests with exchanges and banks
as an integral application on Bubi blockchain, Shubei Hebao has been launched recently, which is a good demonstration for the landing application of blockchain technology in various instries
1.4 why the financial instry needs blockchain
trust is the foundation of the financial instry. In order to maintain trust, the development of the financial instry has spawned a large number of high-cost, low-efficiency, single point of failure intermediaries, including trusteeship, third-party payment, notaries, banks, exchanges and so on. Blockchain technology uses new encryption authentication technology and decentralized consensus mechanism to maintain a complete, distributed and tamperable account book, so that participants can ensure the security of funds and information through a unified account book system without mutual recognition and trust. This is of great significance to finance. Therefore, global financial giants are exploring blockchain applications one after another. On the one hand, this is to prevent the risk of being subverted; on the other hand, it is also "for our own use" to improve efficiency and rece costs, so as to consolidate, optimize and expand the existing power< br />?
first, blockchain can rece trust risk. Blockchain technology has the characteristics of open source and transparency. The participants of the system can know the operation rules of the system, verify the authenticity and integrity of the account book content and account book construction history, and ensure that the transaction history is reliable and has not been tampered with, which is equivalent to improving the accountability of the system and recing the trust risk of the system. For example, blockchain can avoid the current Internet Financial P2P running, fraud and other events< br />?
secondly, blockchain can improve the efficiency of payment, transaction and settlement. On the blockchain, the process of transaction confirmation is the process of clearing, settlement and auditing. Blockchain uses distributed accounting, all transactions are displayed in real time on a spreadsheet similar to global sharing, real-time clearing, and efficiency is greatly improved. For example, the U.S. securities settlement system is t + 3, but the blockchain can improve the efficiency to the minute level, which can rece the settlement risk by 99%, thus effectively recing the cost of capital and systemic risk< br />?
thirdly, blockchain can rece operating costs. Financial business systems and back office work are often faced with long processes and multiple links. Nowadays, no matter visa, master or all of them operate in a centralized way, money transfer has to go through a third party, which makes the cost of cross-border transaction, currency exchange rate, internal accounting and time cost too high, and brings risks to capital. Blockchain can simplify and automate the lengthy financial service process, rece the interaction between foreground and background, and save a lot of human and material resources, which is of great significance to optimize the financial business process and improve the financial competitiveness. The Bank of Spain believes that by 2022, blockchain technology will help the financial instry rece its bookkeeping costs by $20 billion< br />?
fourthly, blockchain can effectively prevent failures and attacks. The traditional financial model takes the exchange or bank as the center. Once the center fails or is attacked, the whole network may be paralyzed and the transaction will be suspended. The blockchain is supported by many distributed nodes and computer servers on the point-to-point network. The problems of any part will not affect the overall operation, and each node keeps a of the blockchain data. Therefore, the built-in business continuity of blockchain has high reliability and fault tolerance< br />?
fifthly, blockchain can improve the level of automation. Since all files or assets can be represented in the form of codes or ledgers, smart contracts and automatic transactions can be realized on the blockchain by setting the data processing program on the blockchain. For example, a smart contract can write a set of financial terms into the agreement to ensure the automatic execution and default payment of the contract< br />?
sixth, blockchain can meet regulatory and audit requirements. The records stored on the blockchain are transparent, traceable and unchangeable. Any record, once written to the blockchain, is permanent and cannot be tampered with. Any transaction between two parties can be tracked and inquired< br />?
in addition to the above positive effects on existing systems and business models, blockchain can also drive the birth of new business models. On the one hand, the characteristics of blockchain technology enable it to achieve some business models that are difficult to achieve in the centralized mode. On the other hand, blockchain greatly encourages the innovation and cooperation of the whole society through the opening and cooperation of source code. Of course, there will be a lot of problems and challenges in the application of blockchain in finance. This paper also thinks about the specific application
the working principle of blockchain technology is not difficult to understand. If we focus on the application research of specific blockchain technology, we can find that the working principle of this blockchain technology is ubiquitous.