What is blockchain? There have been many attempts to create digital money in the past, but they have always failed. Why? Because of trust. Especially now when there are so many movies or TV shows about money heists, one may think that if someone creates a new currency called the X dollar or euro or even RON, how can we trust that they won’t give themselves a million X dollars, or steal the money for themselves? 

But, if you’ve watched La Casa del Papel (Money Heist), you now know that even stealing the gold from the Bank of Spain is not an impossible thing. So, if we’re talking about trust, then no money is safe… digital or not.  

But, back to our subject, what is blockchain? Simply put it is a way of recording information so that it makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system. Of course, different types of information can be stored on a blockchain, but the most common use so far has been as a ledger for transactions. 

Again, talking about the trust problem, we can take Bitcoin as exemple. This cryptocurrency was designed to solve this problem by using a specific type of database called a blockchain. Most normal databases, such as an SQL database, have someone in charge who can change the entries (e.g. giving themselves a million X dollars). Blockchain is different because nobody is in charge, it’s run by the people who use it. Bitcoins can’t be faked, hacked or double spent – so people that own this money can trust that it has some value.

To understand what is blockchain technology and how does it work, we’ve come up with 5 necessary takeaways (plus, at the end a surprise for the people who want to change the world using technology for humanity):

  1. When did the the blockchain concept first appear

As Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta wrote in “How to Time-stamp a Digital Document”, first proposed as a research project in 1991, the blockchain concept first application was Bitcoin, in 2009. It was conceptualized by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto one year earlier. And it was implemented the following year by Nakamoto himself as a core component of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions on the network. Very important, many people assume that blockchain and Bitcoin are the same. But this is not true: blockchain is the underlying technology of Bitcoin.

In the years since, the use of blockchains has exploded via the creation of various cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and smart contracts. Currently, blockchain is being tested with proof on concepts (POCs) in many different industries and regions around the world. Also, very important, don’t forget that this is still early days for this technology. Several blockchain providers, like IBM and R3, released version 1 of their solutions in 2017. So, this is all very new and revolutionary technology that can and most probably change the future. 

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  1. What is the difference between a typical database and a blockchain

The most important difference between them is how the data is structured. A blockchain collects information together in groups, known as blocks, that hold sets of information. Blocks have certain storage capacities and, when filled, are closed and linked to the previously filled block, forming a chain of data known as the blockchain. All new information that follows that freshly added block is compiled into a newly formed block that will then also be added to the chain once filled. On the contrary, a database usually structures its data into tables with someone in charge. 

Because of its revolutionary technology, blockchain has been developed as an efficient method for completing financial transactions, based on the principle of peer-to-peer involvement and fully decentralized and shared networks. It functions as a distributed ledger that provides visibility of all transactions to all parties in the chain, and it is built on an immutable database. Or simply put it, this money can’t be faked, hacked or double spent.

  1. How does blockchain work?

As we said before, blockchain has been developed as a peer-to-peer involvement. And it has three major components: 

  • Distributed network: The decentralized peer-to-peer architecture is based on a network where each member stores an identical copy of the blockchain and is authorized to validate and certify digital transactions.
  • Shared ledger: The members in the network record the ongoing digital transactions into a shared ledger. They run algorithms and verify the proposed transaction, and only when a majority of members validate the transaction, it is added to the shared ledger.
  • Digital transaction: A digital transaction is any information or digital asset that could be stored in a blockchain.

  1. Public distributed ledger doesn’t need your private information is visible to everybody

With blockchain technology you have visibility of all transactions to all parties in the chain, but this doesn’t need that all their information and transaction details posted on to the blockchain are public. Your privacy is safe with blockchain. With this technology all transactions are private and only visible with the appropriate permissions. A company leveraging a blockchain to distribute data to their suppliers does not mean his competitors can see his suppliers or what they are buying. Nor can the suppliers see other suppliers’ data. It is all private and secure.

  1. Can this revolutionary technology change the future

More and more blockchain technology is used by large organizations. And in different fields not only as a ledger for transactions. One notable startup is Auxledger, a product by Auxesis Group Pvt. Ltd. which enables cross-chain communication (interoperability) aiming to form the decentralized internet of tomorrow. Of course, predicting the future of Blockchain is hard but the integrated view on this revolutionary technology changing the future, makes the future outlook optimistic. So, maybe the future of coding tech for humanity is closer than we all think. The real question here is: are you and your organization ready?

At the end, we just want to give you three examples of how blockchain technology was used. And to do so, we will compare Elrond vs. Ethereum vs. Solana: 

  1. Who are the people behind each project?

A highly scalable, fast and secure blockchain platform for distributed apps, enterprise use cases and the new internet economy, Elrond is built by a team of experienced entrepreneurs, engineers and researchers with significant blockchain backgrounds and technical experience at Microsoft, Google, Intel, and NTT DATA. The team includes two PhDs in CS & AI, multiple math, CS, and AI Olympiad champions, and a former member of the NEM core team. Plus, they are a Romanian blockchain unicorn!

Ethereum is a technology that’s home to digital money, global payments, and applications. The community has built a booming digital economy, bold new ways for creators to earn online, and so much more. It’s open to everyone, wherever you are in the world – all you need is the internet. Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin. Additional founders of Ethereum included Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio and Joseph Lubin. In 2014, development work commenced and was crowdfunded, and the network went live on 30 July 2015.

Finally, Solana is a public blockchain platform. In 2021, Bloomberg journalist Joanna Ossinger described it as “a potential long-term rival for Ethereum”, citing superior transaction speeds and lower associated costs. Solana can purportedly handle 50,000 transactions per second, which is faster than the Ethereum blockchain.

  1. Who is their main audience?

For Elrond, the main audience is made of developers, validators, businesses and users looking for an internet scale blockchain platform solution. On the other hand, Ethereum is for anyone interested in the community-run technology powering the cryptocurrency, ether (ETH) and thousands of decentralized applications. And, finally, Solana is for crypto developers and users interested in a fast, secure, and censorship resistant blockchain providing the open infrastructure required for global adoption.

  1. Three things they all have in common

All of them have documentation, but only Elrond offers 24/7 live support. Elrond, Ethereum and Solana have integration with MyCointainer. But only Entherem has integration also with Biconomy, BitDegree, Cargo, Coinhako, Cove Markets, CryptoGem, Dapp Pocket, DeFi Explore or DexGuru, among their 644 integrations (vs. Elrond – only 17 and Solana – 133 integrations). And, all of them are SaaS supported. 

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