Chapter 4: Technical Aspects of Blockchain

The creation of the internet with an open network architecture occurred in 1972 allowing the public to access all the interconnected networks (Leiner et al. 1997). The number of internet users has grown dramatically during the past several decades (Warf 2013). However, the internet today has become a playground for hackers to steal data and breach systems (The Economist 2019). Internet users are worried about data breaches by cyberattacks because of its unreliable network architecture and security. Securing the internet is not optional, but necessary for communication and sharing data (Abbosh and Bissel 2019).

Many people know bitcoin as a cryptocurrency, but are unfamiliar with blockchain. Some market participants mistakenly believe that any blockchain is simply a kind of bitcoin. Blockchain is a distributed ledger to store transactions data on distributed computers (Brakeville and Perepa 2019). It collects transactions into blocks, records cryptographically secured blocks in the ledger in chronological order, and allows participants to access the resulting ledger (i.e., nodes).