In depth analysis of blockchain
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
As the name suggests, blockchain is composed of block and chain. It is a new application mode of computer technology such as distributed data storage, point-to-point transmission, consensus mechanism, encryption algorithm and so on. It is a kind of chain data structure that combines data blocks in order according to the time sequence, and it is a secure and reliable distributed account book that can not be tampered with and forged by means of cryptographyin 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
Second, the working principle of blockchain:1. The 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, not 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 must be put into a new block to be added, 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
Core advantages and characteristics of blockchain1. The verification, accounting, storage, maintenance and transmission of decentralized blockchain data are all based on 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. The open and transparent 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. 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 uses 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. Therefore, the data stability and reliability of the blockchain are extremely high. 5. Anonymity because the exchange between nodes follows a fixed algorithm, and its data interaction does not need trust (the program rules in the blockchain will judge whether the activity is effective or not). Therefore, the counterparties do not need to let the counterparties generate their own trust by disclosing their identities, which is very helpful for credit accumulation
At present, the most popular classification of blockchain is to divide blockchain into public blockchain, private blockchain and consortium blockchain according to different participants1. 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, enjoys the exclusive write permission of the blockchain, and does not disclose the information. 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 between the public chain and the existing chain, which is jointly controlled by multiple organizations. 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
On May 28, Ma Huateng, CEO of Tencent, proposed the anti-counterfeiting method based on cloud integrated blockchain technology, which is far more efficient than traditional anti-counterfeiting methods. The future anti-counterfeiting verification scenario may only require users to use their mobile phones for simple scanning, and a large number of complete information based on different dimensions can be obtainedtake 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
The distributed storage ofblockchain 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
(1) digital currency: improve the convenience of currency issuance and use, such as bitcoin and Ethernet in foreign countries, and guorenbao in Chinafrom 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
(3) bills and supply chain financial business: rece human intervention, rece costs and operational risksvalue 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, and store the data of customers with bad records in the blockchain when the bank concts "know your customer" (KYC)
equity crowdfunding:
Five aspects of blockchain instry growth potential promote the healthy development of Technology Virtual reality and other technologies are another emerging technology that will have a significant impact on the future, which is expected to promote human beings from the era of information internet to the era of value Internet
some countries and regions in the United States, Japan and the European Union have promoted the development of blockchain as an important national development strategy, and vigorously promoted the development and application of blockchain technology. China also attaches great importance to the technological innovation and instrial development of blockchain. With the joint participation of it and other enterprises, a large number of new enterprises, new procts, new models and new applications have emerged. The application of blockchain in the fields of finance, government affairs, energy, medical and other instries has graally expanded, and is becoming an important force to drive the technological proct innovation and instrial transformation of various instries
the development of blockchain can be divided into three stages, namely, blockchain 1.0, represented by bitcoin and related financial infrastructure applications, and blockchain 2.0, represented by smart contract. At present, it is graally moving towards blockchain 3.0, which is based on blockchain technology and more complex in-depth application of smart contract
statistical analysis of blockchain investment and financing in the first half of the year. According to the statistical data of in depth analysis report on business model innovation and investment opportunities of blockchain instry published by foresight Instry Research Institute, in the first half of 2018, the amount of financing in the blockchain field was about 10.7 billion, with a year-on-year growth rate of 1426% compared with the same period in 2017; The number of investment and financing events in the field of blockchain has reached 205, and it is expected that the investment in the field of blockchain will usher in another peak this year
according to the distribution of investment and financing rounds in China's blockchain field, the proportion of investment rounds in the start-up period (before round b) is more than 95%, with the joint investment of many instry pioneers, and most enterprises are still running around
statistics and growth of blockchain investment and financing in the first half of 2014-2018
data source: China attaches great importance to the development and application of blockchain technology. Driven by multiple forces such as policy, technology and market, the pace of blockchain innovation has been accelerating. It has been deeply integrated with cloud computing, big data, Internet of things and other technologies. The scope of exploration and application has also expanded from digital assets to supply chain management, intelligent manufacturing, instrial Internet, social welfare, right protection and other fields
five aspects to promote the healthy development of blockchain technology, promote the high-quality development of digital economy
1, in-depth study and grasp the development trend of blockchain technology and instry. Pay close attention to the international development frontier, jointly promote the research of blockchain related technology and instry, promote the standardization of blockchain development instry behavior, and create a good development environment
2. Strengthen the construction of core technology capacity of blockchain
establish and improve the collaborative promotion mechanism among backbone enterprises, universities and research institutions, guide it enterprises to strengthen technical reserves, accelerate the breakthrough of key core technologies, and improve the performance, efficiency and security of blockchain
3. Support entrepreneurship and innovation in the field of blockchain
encourage cross-border integration between blockchain enterprises and user units, guide instry organizations to establish public service platforms, support third-party organizations to carry out evaluation and detection of blockchain services, promote rich instrial applications of blockchain, and serve the transformation and upgrading of the real economy
4. Actively build and improve the blockchain standard system
accelerate the development and application of key standards, and graally build a perfect standard system. Actively connect with ITU, ISO and other international standards organizations, substantially participate in more international standardization work, and actively contribute more "Chinese power"
5. Accelerate the improvement of the policy environment for blockchain development
support qualified enterprises to carry out application innovation and mode innovation, and guide and encourage enterprises, universities and scientific research institutes to jointly cultivate professional talents needed for blockchain development. Support eligible blockchain enterprises to enjoy the preferential tax policies of the state to support the development of software instry and small and medium-sized enterprises
the instrial scale is small, but the growth potential is huge
the blockchain economy is on the eve of the outbreak period. The financial instry is relatively widely used, and the application of other instries has also entered the stage of exploration and development. It is estimated that from 2017 to 2022, the direct market value of blockchain will increase from US $410 million to US $7.68 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 79.6%. It is estimated that all kinds of extended business based on blockchain will reach US $100 billion in 2020
instry application areas continue to expand
the financial instry takes the lead in the application of blockchain technology, and many financial applications have been implemented; Medical instry is an important area of blockchain application, which can better protect privacy, improve service quality and management efficiency; The demand of social authentication for blockchain is rising rapidly to solve the proof problem caused by information asymmetry; The application of blockchain technology in communication, supply chain and other fields is expanding rapidly
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.
blockchain is the underlying system of distributed ledger in bitcoin. Bitcoin ledgers are built in a distributed and spontaneous way. Anyone can generate new currency blocks by performing specific cryptographic calculations, so as to obtain a digital "currency" that can be used for transactions. Bitcoin's impact on the world monetary system can be said to be subversive, which is also an important reason why it has attracted a lot of people's strong attention since it came out. After that, there were dozens of similar electronic currencies such as
"lightcoin". The abstract extraction of distributed digital currency technology from bitcoin forms a "blockchain" technology, which can be used in more fields
the basic idea of blockchain is to establish a network-based public ledger (data block), each block contains the information of a network transaction. All the participating users in the network work together to keep accounts and check accounts. All the data are open and transparent, and can be used to verify the effectiveness of the information. In this way, the authenticity and non tamperability of information can be guaranteed at the technical level without the central server as the trust intermediary
the significance of blockchain lies in "decentralization", which can fundamentally solve the fraud and rent-seeking phenomenon in value exchange and transfer by building a more reliable network system. With the popularization of blockchain technology, the digital economy will be more authentic, and the economic society will become more fair and transparent
not only digital currency, but also blockchain technology is infiltrating into more innovative fields.
virtual digital currency such as bitcoin is just an application scenario of blockchain technology. Theoretically speaking, based on the characteristics of blockchain technology, human beings can create a very rich form of services and procts, such as finance, government, enterprises, etc There are a large number of scenarios suitable for blockchain technology in cross instry and other fields, with broad prospects. At present, many countries around the world have started the research of blockchain technology, and a series of instry organizations and alliances have been established. However, as blockchain technology is a brand-new technology, which subverts the traditional centralized mode, major institutions are still in the research stage, with only a small number of actual projects landing, and the great development of the instry has just begun
now, blockchain economy is on the eve of outbreak. The exploration of financial instry is ahead of others, while the application of other instries is developing rapidly. The obvious advantage of blockchain instry application is to optimize business process, rece operation cost and improve collaborative efficiency. This advantage has been graally reflected in financial services, Internet of things, public services, social welfare and supply chain management
as the backbone of emerging technologies, blockchain is not only used in the field of virtual currency, but also in other fields such as finance, medical care, intellectual property certification, etc. a large number of excellent enterprises have emerged in China to explore or enter the blockchain instry. According to the in-depth analysis report on business model innovation and investment opportunities of blockchain instry released by foresight Instry Research Institute, as of the end of 2016, there were 105 blockchain related enterprises in China, 80% of which were concentrated in eastern coastal cities, including Shanghai, Hangzhou and Taipei
from the perspective of global blockchain technology application development, as of April 2017, financial service companies accounted for 55.43% of the 267 blockchain venture capital companies; From the perspective of the Chinese market, 34 of the top 50 blockchain venture capital companies in 2016 are involved in financial services, mainly in cross-border payment, bill discounting and financial service platform<
analysis of the development trend of blockchain
the combination of blockchain and cloud computing is more and more close, and baas is expected to become a public trust infrastructure
cloud computing is the general trend. We believe that the combination of blockchain and cloud is also an inevitable trend. There are two modes for the combination of blockchain and cloud, one is blockchain in the cloud, the other is blockchain in the cloud. The latter, namely baas, blockchain-as-a-service, refers to that the cloud service providers directly provide blockchain as a service to users. In the future, more and more cloud service enterprises will integrate blockchain technology into the ecological environment of cloud computing. By providing baas function, they can effectively rece the deployment cost of enterprise application blockchain and rece the initial threshold of innovation and entrepreneurship
the security problem of blockchain has become increasingly prominent, and security protection needs the overall consideration of technology and management
blockchain system is almost perfect mathematically, with the advantages of openness and transparency, difficult to tamper, reliable encryption, anti DDoS attack, etc. However, from the engineering point of view, its security is still restricted by infrastructure, system design, operation management, privacy protection and technology update iteration. In the future, we need to consider the overall situation of technology and management, strengthen basic research and overall protection, so as to ensure the application security
the competition of blockchain is becoming increasingly fierce, and patent competition has become an important field of competition
with the increase of participants, the competition of blockchain will become more and more fierce, and the competition is all-round, including technology, mode, patent and other dimensions. We believe that in the future, enterprises will strengthen the layout of blockchain patents. Since 2014, the number of blockchain patent applications has grown explosively. Blockchain patents are mainly distributed in the United States in North America, the United Kingdom in Europe, China and South Korea in Asia, and this pattern will be maintained in the future. The patent gap between China and the United States is narrowing, and the number of applications in China in 2016 has surpassed that in the United States. It can be predicted that the patent competition of blockchain will become increasingly fierce in the future
with the acceleration of domestic policy process, the development of the instry ushers in a new opportunity
blockchain has attracted attention from all walks of life e to its core advantages of high performance, high security, high-speed access, efficient operation and so on. In the context of the rapid development of blockchain, China conforms to the needs of globalization, closely follows the international pace, and actively promotes the research, standardization and instrialization development of domestic blockchain related fields
trustworthiness is the core requirement of blockchain, and the importance of standards and specifications is becoming increasingly prominent
in the future value delivery network based on blockchain, we will completely use algorithms and software to build the trust foundation. However, we believe that this is far from enough, and we need the standard to increase the credibility of the blockchain. In the future, the standard of blockchain will standardize the technology and governance of blockchain from the perspective of users, business oriented, and from the dimensions of smart contract, consensus mechanism, private key security, and authority management, so as to enhance the credibility of blockchain and add weight to the trust of blockchain.
1. Decentralized: the left side of Figure 1 describes the centralized characteristics of today's financial system, and the right side describes the emerging decentralized financial system, which has no intermediary, and the rights and obligations of all nodes are equal. Any node that stops working will not affect the overall operation of the system
2. Trustworthiness: all nodes in the system can trade without trust, because the operation of the database and the whole system is open and transparent, and nodes cannot cheat each other within the rules and time range of the system
3. Collective maintenance: the system is maintained by all the nodes with maintenance function, and all the people in the system participate in the maintenance work together
4. Reliable database: every node in the system has the latest complete database , so it is invalid to modify the database of a single node, because the system will automatically compare and think that the same data record that appears most times is true
the blockchains of bitcoin, Ethereum and decent all have these characteristics.
1. Decentralization
the core advantage of blockchain technology is that it does not need a traditional centralized organization, and does not rely on the point-to-point transaction, coordination and cooperation of a credit center in the distributed system, so as to avoid the common problems of data security, collaborative efficiency and risk control of centralized organizations
2. High security
in blockchain technology, data is difficult to tamper with. Anyone can access the database that records transactions. In this transparent and open mode, everyone can act as a supervisor. We can see at a glance what changes have taken place in the data, which is more secure than traditional technology
3. More reliable
the blockchain technology is connected by multiple nodes in different places. The nodes in the blockchain interact through the point-to-point communication protocol. Under the condition of ensuring the consistency of the communication protocol, different nodes can be processed by different developers using different programming languages and different versions of the whole node
in short, when a node encounters network problems, hardware failures, software errors or is controlled by hackers, the operation of other participating nodes and systems will not be affected
therefore, blockchain is more reliable than traditional technology
therefore, I firmly believe that the application of blockchain must be the development trend in the future.