The 21st century's most significant innovation should be Blockchain technology. Given the ripple effect, it has various industries, including financial, manufacturing, and education. Many people are unaware that Blockchain has a long history dating back to the early 1990s.
But before jumping directly to the history and the emergence of Blockchain technology. Let me make you familiar with the topic first.
What is Blockchain technology?A blockchain is a distributed ledger that records transactions on thousands of computers all over the world. These are saved in a way that prevents them from being changed later. Blockchain technology improves the security and speed of information exchange cost-effectively and transparently. It also eliminates the need for third parties whose primary function was to include a level of confidence and certification in transactions (such as notaries and banks).
The high value of Blockchain has piqued the interest of businesses from various industries, with the banking sector being the most involved at this time. Thousands of new job opportunities and startups have been created due to Blockchain, ranging from mobile payment solutions to health care applications.
History of Blockchain technology-- 1991-2008 - Early years of Blockchain technology. In 1991, Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta envisioned what has become known as the Blockchain. Their first project was to create a cryptographically protected chain of blocks that would prevent anyone from tampering with document timestamps. They updated their system in 1992 to include Merkle trees, increasing productivity and enabling them to collect more documents on a single block. However, thanks to the work of one person or community known as Satoshi Nakamoto, Blockchain History began to gain significance in 2008. Blockchain technology is credited to Satoshi Nakamoto as the brains behind it. People believe Nakamoto may be an individual or a group of people who worked on Bitcoin, the first application of digital ledger technology, but very little is known about him.
- 2008-2013 Blockchain 1:0 Bitcoin emergence. The first application of Blockchain technology was Bitcoin, which was created in 2008. Satoshi Nakamoto described it as an electronic peer-to-peer system in his whitepaper. Nakamoto created the genesis block used to mine other blocks, resulting in one of the largest chains of blocks carrying various pieces of information and transactions. Since the introduction of Bitcoin, a blockchain-based framework, a slew of new ones have emerged, all attempting to capitalize on the concepts and capabilities of the distributed ledger technology. As a result, blockchain history includes a long list of applications that have emerged as the technology has progressed.
- 2013-2015: Blockchain 2.0: Ethereum Development. As one of the first contributors to the Bitcoin codebase, Vitalik Buterin is among a growing list of developers who believe Bitcoin has yet to leverage the capabilities of blockchain technology fully. Concerned about Bitcoin's shortcomings, Buterin began developing a malleable blockchain that can perform various functions in addition to serving as a peer-to-peer network. In 2013, Ethereum was born as a new decentralized blockchain with more features than Bitcoin, a breakthrough that has proven to be a watershed moment in Blockchain history. Since its official launch in 2015, the Ethereum blockchain has grown to become one of the most popular uses of blockchain technology, thanks to its ability to help smart contracts that perform various tasks. The Ethereum blockchain platform has also succeeded in attracting a vibrant developer community, resulting in developing a true ecosystem.
- 2018: Blockchain 3.0: the Future NEO, the first open-source, decentralized blockchain network introduced in China, is one of the first blockchain applications. Despite the country's ban on cryptocurrencies, it continues to be a leader in blockchain technology. NEO positions itself as the Chinese Ethereum, with Alibaba CEO Jack Ma already endorsing it as it aspires to have the same effect as Baidu in the region. In the race to speed up the development of the Internet of Things, some developers decided to use blockchain technology, which led to the creation of IOTA. The cryptocurrency platform is tailored for the IoT ecosystem, with zero transaction costs and one-of-a-kind verification processes. It also fixes some of the scalability problems with Bitcoin's Blockchain 1.0 version. Other second-generation blockchain systems, in addition to IOTA and NEO, are causing a ripple effect in the industry. The blockchains Monero, Zcash, and Dash were created to fix some of the security and scalability problems that plagued early blockchain applications. The three blockchain platforms, dubbed privacy Altcoins, aim to provide high privacy and protection standards when it comes to transactions.
- 2015: Hyperledger The Linux Foundation announced the Umbrella open-source blockchain project in 2015. They named it Hyperledger, and it has since served as a shared development platform for distributed ledgers. Hyperledger aims to advance cross-industry collaboration for the advancement of Blockchain and distributed ledgers under Brian Behlendorf.
- 2017: EOS.IO EOS is a private sector block's brainchild. In 2017, a white paper outlining a new blockchain protocol powered by EOS as the native cryptocurrency was released, and one was born. Unlike other blockchain protocols, EOS attempts to mimic real-world device characteristics such as CPU and GPU. As a result, EOS.IO functions as both a smart contract network and a decentralized operating system. Its primary goal is to promote the implementation of decentralized applications through the creation of a self-contained decentralized company.
- Transactions are efficient, private, and secure.
- It's a Transparent technology
- By eliminating human intervention from the verification process, accuracy has improved.
- The cost has been reduced due to eliminating third-party verification.
- It is more difficult to tamper with a decentralized system.
- has a significant technological expense.
- Transactions per second are low.
- Usage in illegal activity in the past.
The Future of Blockchain technology appears promising, thanks to the large investments made by governments and businesses to spur innovation and applications. It is becoming increasingly apparent that one day a public blockchain will be available for everyone to use.
The rise in demand for Blockchain professionals has coincided with the evolution of Blockchain technology in recent years. Companies are adopting Blockchain to reap the advantages of Blockchain technologies.
Blockchain technology has its pros and cons but we can not deny the fact that this technology is doing wonders and changing the outlook Of companies and the modern world.
