The very essence of blockchain, what it is, and how it works.

[Brother]

All cryptocurrencies are based on blockchain technology. Not to say that there was something supernatural, even more, there is a mass of quite fair criticism of this technology and much more elegant solutions to the same problem. But for now, the basis is still the blockchain.

Blockchain is a specially designed database. It differs in that it does not have a single administrator who monitors the reliability of the data. The blockchain base belongs to everyone at once, and at the same time to no one in particular, and at the same time everyone controls the reliability of the data.

Thanks to such a device, no separate uncle is needed who monitors the performance and reliability and takes money for it. This means that there is no need for a mister banker to monitor the correctness of the calculation of the amounts on the accounts. There is no need for a state that endows the banker with such powers, etc. etc. But all the same, everything will be fair and work correctly. This is the whole point of the blockchain.

It allows you to create an honest information system, despite the fact that all participants in the system do not trust each other and only care about their own interests. In the simplest case, this system is just like a database of a special structure, and that's it.

How is this implemented?

Each member of the network simply has its own copy of the database. And there is a special way that new records get into this database. And nothing can be removed from it imperceptibly. If you delete (or change), anyone will notice.

These are the two rules on which the blockchain is based. Once again, nothing can be discreetly removed (or changed retroactively) from the blockchain. And in order to write something to the blockchain, you need to work hard, and there is a reliable way to check that there was no hack.

In the case of bitcoin, this database stores a log of all transactions (transfers between wallets) that have ever been committed. Absolutely everyone, yes. As of today, the full size of the bitcoin blockchain is about 200 GB, by the way.

Let's take an example.

Alice wanted to transfer Bitcoins to Bob. It creates a record "transfer 100,500 bitcoins from wallet A to wallet B" and sends this record to all other nodes on the network. Now this record needs to be placed in all copies of the database. Then everyone will have synchronous information and the record will become part of the database. By the way, the record uses an electronic signature, i.e. you can't fake it.

This is approximately what happens in life. But there is one caveat.

To avoid chaos, and also to avoid double spending of the same bitcoins, you need a special way to organize all these records and save them to the blockchain database.

For this, all records are combined into blocks. And users in their copy of the database already write a block, and not a separate record.

Any network node can theoretically form such a block. But so that there is no chaos, some honest way is needed in which one person forms a new block, and then everyone uses it.

This method was invented by creating a special competition among all comers. Whoever succeeds first - its block is used. And so that there was an incentive to do this at all - they came up with a reward for such a person. If you win, then you are awarded 12.5 bitcoins.

What exactly to compete in - there are different options, different ideas. In the case of Bitcoin, there is a lot of goofy computational work to be done, and a lot of it. So that it takes at least 10 minutes of time. It does not in any way affect the composition of the records in the block, the work is purely auxiliary. But huge. It is very easy and quick to check the correctness of this computational work, even the Nokia 3310 will cope in milliseconds. But finding the right number is not an easy task. This is what miners do. Moreover, the system is wisely designed so that the more miners there are in the network, the more difficult the task is, you can't cheat. And they compete with each other. The one who was the first to make the correct calculation received a reward of 12.5 bitcoins. From nowhere. From no other wallet.

In general, here is such a piece of information.

Friends, please let me know with likes if you need to continue this topic. I can tell you a lot, and that's about this level of complexity, without digging unnecessarily into technical details.

 

[Carding Forum]

How blockchain conquers the finance industry: global experience​

Banks, insurance companies and payment systems fell in love with blockchain more than others.

How blockchain conquers the finance industry: global experience
According to the analytical company Fortune Business Insights, in five years the blockchain technology market will reach $ 21 billion. The main impetus for development, of course, is the post-coronavirus crisis and the activity of large companies developing their own blockchain technologies.

Blockchain is considered both economic and technological innovation, but most companies are focused on changing financial processes. This is partly why the financial sector, and especially banks, is most interested in technology. Back in 2018, the largest Spanish bank BBVA became the first financial institution in the world to issue a loan of 75 million euros using blockchain technology.
Blockchain technology is based on the principle of a continuous sequential chain of blocks containing information. Initially, the technology was conceived for carrying out mutual settlements in the bitcoin cryptocurrency, but over time, many financial organizations have appreciated the advantages of the system. Deutsche Bank, Barclays Bank, the US Federal Reserve and Citigroup are already actively using the technology, about 30% of the total investment in the blockchain is made by the financial sector.
Banks, insurance companies and payment systems fell in love with blockchain more than others, including such giants as VISA, Mastercard, Unionpay and SWIFT. UBS Group AG, the largest Swiss financial holding company that provides a wide range of financial services around the world, has even opened special research laboratories dedicated to blockchain - to study how the technology can be used to increase efficiency and reduce costs in the financial sector.
How blockchain conquers the finance industry: global experience

Why and who needs technology
With the help of blockchain, they usually expect to increase the transparency of business processes and speed up bureaucratic procedures, since in the long term this should help save millions of dollars.
For example, the Thomson Reuters Survey showed that financial institutions spend about $ 60 million a year on customer identification and verification. Blockchain is the lifesaver that will help you optimize the costly process and cut costs. Information about verified clients can be safely stored in one blockchain node for all, to which all financial market players have access.
Safe storage of data is the strong point of blockchain technology, which significantly reduces the possibility of outside interference thanks to decentralized data. Information is stored not in one place, but in several nodes, breaking into which requires much more resources from fraudsters.
The German insurance company Allianz SE and the Dutch financial conglomerate ING have already noted the advantages of blockchain technology in terms of customer databases. Blockchain has brought a completely new format of cooperation to the financial industry, forcing banks and financial institutions to unite, to act together - often bypassing the regulator.
Given the fact that one of the main problems of modern banks remains distrust of competitors, blockchain can become a real unifying tape that will create a fundamentally new financial ecosystem.

How blockchain is conquering the finance industry: global experience.
In addition, blockchain significantly speeds up payments - and this is a powerful argument for any financial institution. One of the projects of the Swiss UBS Group AG called Batavia is the best proof of this, now the blockchain platform successfully conducts fast cross-border transactions, instantly creating connections between all participants in the financial process.

How blockchain influenced the global finance industry: expert opinion
PaySpace Magazine asked Ukrainian companies that are experts in the field of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to share their views on how blockchain has impacted the global finance industry.
Distributed Lab is a blockchain research and decentralized platform development company. Distributed Lab creates innovative products, educational events and conferences.
Tezos Ukraine develops innovative technological solutions in the field of new, open and decentralized software architectures that can respond to the challenges of modern society.

This technology made people think about creating new systems that provide such properties as transparency (real-time audit), fault tolerance, irreversibility of actions and corresponding records. In addition, such systems can be owned and operated not by one party, as was the case using traditional technologies, but by a group of independent parties. Not so long ago it seemed that it would be very difficult to achieve all these properties at the same time. It was difficult for us to imagine a tool that could allow this to be done. Now we see that many companies are testing and applying blockchain technology in their activities, including for accounting for finance.
Distributed Lab.

In fact, blockchain is only now beginning to influence the finance industry, since blockchain is, first of all, a tool to fight banking terrorism. What the banking sector is now introducing under the guise of KYC / AML in the fight against terrorism is in fact terrorism against the financial freedom of citizens, creating additional obstacles in financial relationships. But the creators of such obstacles do not understand this, but the younger generation and those people who have already tried all the charm and freedom of blockchain and financial management on the blockchain understand this. This is a tool that sooner or later will give them a blow and force them to reconsider the existing principles and policies of openness and transparency.
Sergey Vasilchuk
Co-founder of Tezos Ukraine, CEO of "Everstake", participant of the pilot project to create E-hryvnia.

In what areas is blockchain technology most often and successfully applied?

Distributed Lab:
The potential for applying the technology is quite large and it affects a lot of areas of human activity, the most common of which at the moment are:

• e-voting platforms;
• decentralized auctions;
• asset tokenization and digital transformation in general;
• increasing the level of automation in decision making;
• private settlement systems;
• decentralized autonomous organizations;
• property rights registers;
• timestamping of events (event records).

It is also important to note that there are a number of myths regarding the application of blockchain technology. For example, some people believe that when data is written to a block, the data is automatically valid. Of course, this is not the case. Data validation must be implemented before the data enters the accounting system.

Sergey Vasilchuk, co-founder of Tezos Ukraine, CEO of Everstake

First of all, these are stablecoins - this is what will fight terrorism. The second is financial trading. Look at MakerDAO, DeFi.
Blockchain has reinvented the financial management process, blockchain has reinvented the principle of managing collateral, making it transparent, beautiful and reliable thanks to smart contracts. Blockchain has reinvented trading - see how crypto assets are traded and how high-tech the exchanges that trade virtual assets are. Therefore, blockchain for me equates to fast, convenient and high-quality financial management. So far, I believe this is the main direction for the application and development of blockchain technology. I do not see any other real areas of blockchain application, besides financial, yet, at least in the near future.

 

[CarderPlanet]

Jack Dorsey's Square changed its name to Block - with a hint of blockchain​

On December 1, 2021, Jack Dorsey's Square company announced a name change to Block (site block.xyz). Square's current financial services and mobile payments services will retain their former name. Square Crypto Bitcoin Promotion Platform has been renamed Spiral.

Square will retain its current SQ designation on the US Stock Exchange. The company will be renamed on December 10th.

The management explained the renaming of the company by the need to reflect in its name the growth of internal services (payment platform Square CashApp, the initiative to promote Bitcoin Square Crypto, which will turn into Spiral, Tidal streaming service, an open source platform for exchanging digital assets TBD54566975), which will be its blockchain elements, as well as development towards blockchain. In addition, from December 1, the CashApp application began to support Bitcoin transactions.

“Block is a new name, but our goal of expanding economic opportunities remains the same. Regardless of how we grow or change, we will continue to create tools to help expand access to the economy, ”said a spokesman for Square

Until November 29, Dorsey served as CEO of Twitter while also managing the electronic payments service Square. At the end of November, he quit Twitter and took over Square entirely.

This summer, Square started building a platform for developers of cryptocurrency financial applications. Then the head of Square Jack Dorsey emphasized that the main goal of the project is bitcoin. He also promised that the new platform will be completely open - it will have an open roadmap, open development and open source. Then Square announced that it was working on creating its own crypto wallet to make the use of bitcoin more widespread.

Dorsey launched Square in 2009. Today the company's service is used by tens of thousands of commercial structures in the USA, Canada, Japan and Australia.

Square currently has three business lines: Cash App, Square Seller's products, and music streaming service Tidal, which it acquired earlier this year. Dorsey also supported Bitcoin for many years. In February, the company announced that it was holding 5% of its funds in bitcoin. Square is up 1,300% in the past five years . In the Forbes ranking, Dorsey is ranked 173rd among the richest people in the world. His financial condition is estimated at $ 12.5 billion.