Page 24 - Seniors Today October 2020

Tech Matters
The Next
Revolution
Blockchain technology is not yet familiar to most today, yet the potential is
enormous, writes Sandeep Suri
Blockchain technology is a hot topic and
the subject of numerous studies. Some
experts consider it as the next technological
revolution after the internet.
There are numerous explanations out
there on the topic. The way I see Blockchain
is really to think of it as a database. And
it’s a database that is shared across several
participants. We think about a network of
participants, and each has a computer. The
idea is, simultaneously, each member of
the network holds an identical copy of the
blockchain database.
The fundamental principle followed is that
the information is potentially available to all
participants at the moment in time. It’s a new
way of keeping transactions without having a
central agency like a bank.
Or simply put, it’s a distributed,
decentralised public ledger that is stored in
the digital format called ‘block’ and stored
in a public database - the ‘chain.’ It is an
open ledger that records online financial
transactions in chains. Each chain has
individual units called ‘Blocks’. Similarly,
each block consists of a unique code called
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‘hash.’ Every ‘hash’ also contains the hash of
the previous block in the chain. In a specific
order, the link with each other is to form a
blockchain.
The term blockchain is generally associated
with cryptocurrency like the Bitcoin and
Ethereum; the underlying technology applies
to many different domains. At its core, a
blockchain is a mechanism for creating a
distributed ledger. The word ‘Distributed’ here
means that multiple parties can participate,
view, and audit the ledger’s data.
With every transaction that is executed
through Blockchain, it’s blocked together with
all other transactions. To the other end, the
transaction needs validation by more than
50% within the Blockchain network. Once
the validation process is over, the block is
Blockchain offers value, trust and reliability – all key in the
world of information
timestamped and linked to the rest of the
block. These are then conveyed over the
network for verification and validation
for ‘mining.’ The records of verified
transactions are then transferred and
stored in a single block.
Blockchain technology was invented
in 2008 but started gaining traction
only with Bitcoin’s launch. Blockchain
focuses on three significant deliverables:
Value – enables an asset to be transferred
without a centralised middleman; Trust
– creates permanent records of who owns
what, secure to preserve the ‘information
integrity’ and Reliability – the concept of
decentralised network removes the single
point of failure.
Process integrity
In essence, Blockchain is a chain of
information that leaves a perfect audit
history. One can go back through time
and see the entire database. If you’re
recording things like property titles,
insurance, you can see a previous owner
of the property/insurance and the current
owner. You’ve got this perfect audit trail.
But the really exciting thing is the idea of
process integrity as the database can only
Though Blockchain was invented in 2008, it gained traction with the arrival of Bitcoin
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #16 | OCTOBER 2020
be updated when the correct credentials
are applied, and most importantly, those
credentials are verified by a majority of
participants in the network. It’s like, you
have multiple pixels of a photograph lying
in different computers, but the picture
can only be viewed when the pixels are
stitched together! You’re securing this
against the idea of a single point of failure
and somebody working nefariously to
corrupt the database. The beauty is that you
have this democratisation of the process of
dating the database.
Well, Blockchain is a promising technology
that is going beyond cryptocurrency
into more mainstream applications in
business like Insurance and Real Estate.
The technology is still in its infancy
stage but will become a mass product
gradually as companies better understand
how Blockchain can lower the cost of
completing secure transactions between
their customers and suppliers while
reducing their needs on intermediaries. I
agree, Blockchain is not so profound today,
yet the potential is enormous. It’s a space
that needs to be watched closely as we
move forward for another transformative
technology wave!
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