What is Blockchain?

Perhaps no industry stands to benefit from integrating blockchain into its business operations more than banking. Financial institutions only operate during business hours, usually five days a week. That means if you try to deposit a check on Friday at 6 p.m., you will likely have to wait until Monday morning to see that money hit your account. Even if you do make your deposit during business hours, the transaction can still take one to three days to verify due to the sheer volume of transactions that banks need to settle. Blockchain, on the other hand, never sleeps.

Blockchain forms the bedrock for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. If a user’s bank is hacked, the client’s private information is at risk. If the client’s bank collapses or the client lives in a country with an unstable government, the value of their currency may be at risk. These are the worries out of which Bitcoin was first conceived and developed.

By spreading its operations across a network of computers, blockchain allows Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to operate without the need for a central authority. This not only reduces risk but also eliminates many of the processing and transaction fees.

Using cryptocurrency wallets for savings accounts or as a means of payment is especially profound for those who have no state identification. Some countries may be war-torn or have governments that lack any real infrastructure to provide identification. Citizens of such countries may not have access to savings or brokerage accounts—and, therefore, no way to safely store wealth.

Healthcare providers can leverage blockchain to securely store their patients’ medical records. When a medical record is generated and signed, it can be written into the blockchain, which provides patients with the proof and confidence that the record cannot be changed. These personal health records could be encoded and stored on the blockchain with a private key, so that they are only accessible by certain individuals, thereby ensuring privacy.

Blockchain has the potential to eliminate the need for scanning documents and tracking down physical files in a local recording office. If property ownership is stored and verified on the blockchain, owners can trust that their deed is accurate and permanently recorded.

In war-torn countries or areas that have little to no government or financial infrastructure, and certainly no Recorder’s Office, it can be nearly impossible to prove ownership of a property. If a group of people living in such an area is able to leverage blockchain, then transparent and clear time lines of property ownership could be established.

A smart contract is a computer code that can be built into the blockchain to facilitate, verify, or negotiate a contract agreement. Smart contracts operate under a set of conditions to which users agree. When those conditions are met, the terms of the agreement are automatically carried out.

As in the IBM Food Trust example, suppliers can use blockchain to record the origins of materials that they have purchased. This would allow companies to verify the authenticity of not only their products but also common labels such as “Organic,” “Local,” and “Fair Trade.” As reported by Forbes, the food industry is increasingly adopting the use of blockchain to track the path and safety of food throughout the farm-to-user journey.

As mentioned above, blockchain could be used to facilitate a modern voting system. Voting with blockchain carries the potential to eliminate election fraud and boost voter turnout.

A public blockchain is a non-restrictive, permission-less distributed ledger system. Anyone who has access to the internet can sign in on a blockchain platform to become an authorized node and be a part of the blockchain network. A node or user which is a part of the public blockchain is authorized to access current and past records, verify transactions or do proof-of-work for an incoming block, and do mining. The most basic use of public blockchains is for mining and exchanging cryptocurrencies. Thus, the most common public blockchains are Bitcoin and Litecoin blockchains.

Example : Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin

A private blockchain is a restrictive or permission blockchain operative only in a closed network. Private blockchains are usually used within an organization or enterprises where only selected members are participants of a blockchain network. The level of security, authorizations, permissions, accessibility is in the hands of the controlling organization. Thus, private blockchains are similar in use as a public blockchain but have a small and restrictive network. Private blockchain networks are deployed for voting, supply chain management, digital identity, asset ownership, etc.

Examples : Multichain and Hyperledger projects (Fabric, Sawtooth), Corda, etc.

A consortium blockchain is a semi-decentralized type where more than one organization manages a blockchain network. This is contrary to what we saw in a private blockchain, which is managed by only a single organization. More than one organization can act as a node in this type of blockchain and exchange information or do mining. Consortium blockchains are typically used by banks, government organizations, etc.

Examples : Energy Web Foundation, R3, etc.

A hybrid blockchain is a combination of the private and public blockchain. It uses the features of both types of blockchains that is one can have a private permission-based system as well as a public permission-less system. With such a hybrid network, users can control who gets access to which data stored in the blockchain. Only a selected section of data or records from the blockchain can be allowed to go public keeping the rest as confidential in the private network.

Example : Dragonchain.