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Basic explanation of Blockchain

What is Blockchain?
We all know about the topic trending in the market i.e the bitcoin.With so many conversations around it, have you ever wondered about the underlying technology or the driving force behind bitcoins.

It is blockchain, the driving force behind the trending technology.
What is blockchain?
Let us understand it with the help of an example.We all know about tom and jerry and their age old rivalry.Tom wishes to end the rivalry so he decides to send a cube of cheese to jerry.He can’t do it on his own as there is a chance of fight.So he decides to give it to Alice and tells her the entire scenario.But the question arises is how much trustworthy Alice is??The second question arises is will the cube of cheese be delivered without any cut/ commission by Alice.To overcome this traditional setbacks,we can use digital cheese.But this digital cheese will lead to double cost as we need to maintain multiple records.
Digital cheese blockchain comes into picture at this point of time.Digital cheese Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and public ledger of Digital cheese. Every cheese transaction are recorded as a block and followed by another block. Each transaction is verified by the network of nodes.
Blockchain
I’m quite sure that the tom and jerry example was quite self explanatory.Now let us look at the technical side of blockchain.
The simple explanation is a 'chain' of blocks.A block is an aggregated set of data. Data are collected and processed to fit in a block through a process called mining. Each block could be identified using a cryptographic hash (also known as a digital fingerprint). The block formed will contain a hash of the previous block, so that blocks can form a chain from the first block ever (known as the Genesis Block) to the formed block. In this way, all the data could be connected via a linked list structure.Data are contained inside blocks as well as an arbitrary integer  that is necessary for producing the proof-of-work.
In bitcoin blockchain, the block contains a header and relevant transaction data. A merkle tree of transactions is created and the hash of the root is included in the header.A merkle tree is a full binary tree of a hash values. At the bottom level of the tree, each transaction has a node containing its hash value. After that, the tree is constructed in a way such that the parent node has a value of the hash of the data contained in its children concatenating together.
Types of Blockchains
Currently, there are three types of blockchain networks - public blockchains, private blockchains and consortium blockchains.
Public blockchains
A public blockchain has absolutely no access restrictions. Anyone with an internet connection can send transactions to it as well as become a validator .Usually, such networks offer economic incentives for those who secure them and utilize some type of a Proof of Stake or Proof of Work algorithm.Some of the largest, most known public blockchains are Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Private blockchains
A private blockchain is permissioned. One cannot join it unless invited by the network administrators. Participant and validator access is restricted.
This type of blockchains can be considered a middle-ground for companies that are interested in the blockchain technology in general but are not comfortable with a level of control offered by public networks. Typically, they seek to incorporate blockchain into their accounting and record-keeping procedures without sacrificing autonomy and running the risk of exposing sensitive data to the public internet.
Consortium blockchains
A consortium blockchain is often said to be semi-decentralized. It, too, is permissioned but instead of a single organization controlling it, a number of companies might each operate a node on such a network. The administrators of a consortium chain restrict users’ reading rights as they see fit and only allow a limited set of trusted nodes to execute a consensus protocol.

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