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A. You have to know the operating principles and development of blockchain!
1. Why is there innovation in blockchain?
The starting point of the first generation of the Internet is the TCP/IP protocol, which implements a unified format for peer-to-peer transmission of information by all nodes on the network. Open code. However, the impact of such an uncomplicated innovation on mankind is epoch-making. It has programmed, agreed, and enforced the basic values required by a unified global market: "freedom, equality, and fraternity." Then the STMP email protocol, HTTP domain name protocol, etc. were derived, achieving low-cost and high-efficiency global information transmission in a decentralized manner. As Alibaba Vice President Gao Hongbing said:
"The Internet is to eliminate the (information) supply chain that has very low value and high cost - it is open, interconnected, peer-to-peer, globalized, and decentralized."
We know: The essence of the market is also decentralized. It automatically executes the decentralized agreement of "equivalent exchange". Just as Nobel Prize winner Ronald Coase summed up: "The market economy is based on two On the basis of deep cognition: admitting ignorance and tolerating uncertainty." Adam Smith also described the market as: "the invisible hand"! Therefore, the market must require the low-cost flow of information decentralization, and the Internet has adapted to the global Under the general climate formed by the unified market, it turned out to be.
However, the first generation of Internet decentralized solved the problem of low-cost and efficient transmission of information, but it did not solve the problem of credit of information. Therefore, what the second-generation Internet must break through is: how to establish global credit in a decentralized manner so that value transfer can be carried out at low cost and with high efficiency.
So what are the problems with the original centralized credit system? As we all know: centralized credit, such as the legal currencies of various countries, has different credit values, and the clearing systems are also incompatible, which adds a lot of cost to global trade. The current global credit system centered on the US dollar has a "Triffin Paradox" in its mechanism (the essence is that a country's legal currency cannot simultaneously resolve the conflict between its own economic interests and global economic needs). Therefore, in 2009, the Governor of the Central Bank of China, Zhou Ogawa called for the creation of a super-sovereign storage currency. In the same year, Satoshi Nakamoto disclosed the first-generation blockchain source code-"Bitcoin" online.
2. How does the blockchain system operate?
First of all, Satoshi Nakamoto knew very well that establishing a credit system for payment must solve the problem of preventing "duplicate payments", that is, no counterfeit currency can be created. The centralized credit system relies on state machinery to prevent counterfeit currency. What about "Bitcoin"? Satoshi Nakamoto's great innovation is to "timestamp" every transaction. There is a block (block: equivalent to a network account book) every ten minutes, and all network transactions for these ten minutes are correctly timestamped. The question is who will cover it? Satoshi Nakamoto did not assume that everyone on the Internet is Lei Feng. He agreed with Adam Smith: people in the market are greedy. He asked the so-called "miners" to compete for the accounting rights of these ten-minute blocks. The rules of competition are normal.While ensuring accounting, you need to solve the SHA256 problem. Whoever can prove that his computer has the fastest computing power (the so-called PROOF OF WORK mechanism) can compete for the legal accounting rights of these ten-minute blocks and get 25 Bitcoin reward. This is the so-called "mining" process. It is actually a decentralized credit process that establishes a network-wide ledger - the blockchain. Therefore, the more essential function of miners is "bookkeepers"!
Satoshi Nakamoto is here In its Bitcoin white paper, the process of establishing this credit system is described in detail:
Step 1: In order for the entire network to recognize it as valid, each transaction must be broadcast to each node (node: that is, the miner);
The second step: Each miner node must correctly timestamp each transaction in these ten minutes and record it in that block;
The third step: Each miner node must Compete for the legal accounting rights of this ten-minute block by solving the SHA256 puzzle, and strive to get a reward of twenty-five bitcoins (fifty bitcoins every ten minutes for the first four years, decreasing by half every four years);< br>Step 4: If a miner node solves the SHA256 puzzle of these ten minutes, it will publish all the timestamped transactions recorded in its ten-minute blocks to the entire network, and they will be checked by other miner nodes in the entire network;< br>Step 5: Other miner nodes in the entire network check the correctness of the block accounting (because they are also stamping the accounting at the same time, but they have not competed for the legal block accounting rights, so there is no reward), there is no error Finally, they will compete for the next block after the legal block, thus forming a single chain of legal accounting blocks, which is the general ledger of the Bitcoin payment system - the blockchain.
Generally speaking, each transaction must undergo six block confirmations, that is, six ten-minute accounting, before it can finally be recognized as a legal transaction on the blockchain. The following is the accounting format of Bitcoin:
So the so-called "Bitcoin" is such a billing system: it includes the owner electronically signing with the private key and paying to the next owner, and then the entire network's "miners" "Time stamp the account and form a blockchain.
3. What are the innovations in Bitcoin’s blockchain finance?
Similar to gold, trying to establish decentralized credit on the global Internet may allow value to flow across the entire network at high speed and at low rates (currently each transfer The transfer rate is one ten thousandth);
The total amount of currency is agreed upon by the cryptographic protocol;
Compared to gold, digital currency is infinitely divisible;
The value of currency can be based on a large number of P2P transactions ;
Full transparency in financial management (every transaction can be traced on the blockchain).
Bitcoin’s blockchain-wide accounting system has established a market value of US$10 billion, the highest on the global Internet. Therefore, Wu Xiaoling, dean of Tsinghua PBC School of Finance, pointed out: The blockchain experiment established distributed credit, which is an upgraded version of Internet TCP/IP, upgrading from information transmission to value transmission;
4. Bitcoin’s blocks What are the inherent flaws of chain systems?
Bitcoin’s blockchain system has been successful since it was open sourced on the Internet in 2009, but it also shows some inherent flaws that are difficult to overcome:
The total amount cannot change with the market situation, and will inevitably rise and fall sharply. ;
Mining is high-carbon. Only less than 1% of miners can compete for the accounting rights of less than ten minutes of blocks. More than 99% of other miners participating in the competition waste computing power;
About 10% every year. The inflation has greatly increased the cost of the Bitcoin financial ecology, and even threatened her survival;
As a decentralized self-organizing DAC system, the operating costs of the accounting and issuance functions are too high.
As a global payment system, its efficiency is far from meeting the actual requirements of global trade. The Bitcoin network currently confirms a maximum of 7 transactions per second. In comparison, Visa's network system can process 10,000 transactions per second at the fastest, and Alipay's record is 80,000 transactions per second on Singles' Day in 2014!
5. Block The development of chain technology 2.0:
As the 2.0 upgrade and development of blockchain, it first focuses on solving the high carbon of mining in Bitcoin accounting:
When we discuss how to overcome the high carbon of Bitcoin mining and accounting Professor Liu Taoxiong from the Tsinghua Institute of Economics pointed out that mining competition relies on computing power. In the end, only one company competes for the legal accounting rights, and the other 99% of the miner nodes are mined for nothing, which is a waste of resources. It is obviously unreasonable. If The whole network transparently knows the legal accounting rights of the next block, and it is randomly generated in the entire network, which eliminates the high carbon cost of competitive accounting! After hearing this, we all praised Professor Liu for his brilliant idea, because the second generation is now more successful. Coin NXT has this mechanism. Their white paper is called "Transparent Forging". However, the probability of the accounting rights going to someone is directly proportional to the NXT token holdings in each miner node wallet. This is called the proof of equity mechanism ( PROOF OF STOCK). Of course, this also triggered a debate about the unfairness of NXT’s distribution of tokens to early investment developers!
RIPPLE is a semi-decentralized blockchain solution that uses “trusted gateways” to conduct block operations. The credibility of chain accounting is based on the consensus ledger protocol that these gateways will not do evil at the same time.
The most ambitious attempt is Ethereum, which combines blockchain technology with Turing completeness, hoping to develop a basic platform that can support the construction of various blockchain systems in the future. The development of various credit currencies, digital assets, smart protocols and even financial derivatives. The system design is to unify blockchain accounting on the ETHERUM platform and be used by all developers. Maybe their official version will be released in the near future.
6. Possible applications of blockchain innovation in other fields:
Now, blockchain’s attempts to establish decentralized credit are no longer limited to the financial world, but have attracted attention from all fields of society, especially in At present, some of China’s central credits, such as the “Red Cross”, are in a state of “collapse”, blockchain can provide a new way of thinking and technical options for social management. Here are some new developments and related discussions we have learned about:
The combination of blockchain and the Internet of Things unifies digital assets and atomic assets , eliminate the difference between consumer assets and cash assets, expand public credit, and accelerate value circulation; (IBM-Samsung)
Establish an intellectual property protection system on the blockchain, keep accounts of the use of intellectual property across the entire network, and establish a global Advertising market;
Whether blockchain can provide technical support for the issuance of protocol-based cryptographic currencies in emerging economies along the Belt and Road Initiative;
Blockchain + cloud computing can develop into a decentralized self-media and community system;
Blockchain can build a decentralized equity crowdfunding system, allowing innovative projects to enter the circulation field in advance;
Blockchain can develop a fully transparent financial management system;
Blockchain supports the establishment of a global Decentralized corporate organization.
In short, in this era when credit has become a scarce resource, the technological innovation of blockchain, as a distributed credit model, provides new opportunities for finance, social management, talent evaluation and decentralized organization construction in the global market. All provide a broad development prospect.
B. Which year is called the first year of blockchain strategy
2018 is considered the first year of blockchain. Blockchain is the core supporting technology of the digital cryptocurrency system represented by Bitcoin. The core advantage of blockchain technology is decentralization. It can realize point-to-point transactions based on decentralized credit in a distributed system where nodes do not need to trust each other by using data encryption, timestamps, distributed consensus and economic incentives. Coordination and collaboration, so as to solve the common problems of centralized institutions
C. The birth history of blockchain
Many people think of it as soon as they hear the word "blockchain" I will be instinctively daunted by it, thinking it is an inscrutable content or a technology that has nothing to do with me.
2018 is the first year of blockchain technology. In the past Spring Festival, blockchain has become really popular. The "three o'clock sleepless zone" of the first blockchain community "Blockchain", articles from major media "How to introduce blockchain to seven aunts and eight aunts", novices from all walks of life are ready to enter the currency circle and try their best, etc.
We know that the Internet has connected the world over the course of decades. People don’t talk about whether the world is flat, because as long as you have a computer or a mobile phone, you are closely connected to the entire world. Elites are accustomed to calling the past Internet era the information Internet era.
With the advent of blockchain technology in 2008, humans were caught off guard and pulled into the world of bits. In the future, no matter whether you understand what blockchain technology is? Do you understand how digital virtual currency is implemented? They have all been coerced into the second era of the Internet: the era of value Internet. What you don’t know is how blockchain technology was born?
David Chaum, the "bishop" figure of the cypherpunks in the 1980s and 1990s, invented the cryptographic anonymous cash system Ecash in 1990. Chaum believes that a distributed, truly digital cash system should encrypt people’s privacy.
British cryptographer Adam Baker invented Hashcash in 1997, which used the Proof of Work system. The proof-of-work system is one of the core concepts of Bitcoin.
In 1997, Harper and Stonitta proposed a protocol that uses timestamps to ensure the security of digital files. This protocol has also become one of the prototypes of the Bitcoin blockchain protocol. The biggest feature of timestamps is that when a virtual currency is traded, it is timestamped and it cannot be changed.
Cryptozoology expert Dai Wei invented B-money in 1998. B-money emphasizes point-to-point transactions and immutable transaction records, and every trader in the network keeps track of transactions.
In 2004, Hal Finney, a top developer at PGP Crypto Company, launched the electronic currency "Crypto Cash", which used a reusable proof-of-work mechanism (RPOW).
But their single invention and idea are still not enough to become a world-class virtual currency. Ecash declared bankruptcy in 1998; the proof-of-work system cannot guarantee whether digital currencies have been traded many times; the technical protocol of timestamps is only used on a small scale by the government; in the B.money system, David did not solve the problem of ledger synchronization; finally Halfini's idea is still not enough to become a world-class virtual currency.
In 2008, when all technical conditions were mature and time conditions were mature, a god-level figure was still needed to answer a question: why did the previous virtual currency pioneers fail? The name of the person who answered this question is Satoshi Nakamoto.
He believes that the most important reason for the failure of previous virtual currencies is that they all have a centralized structure, and all transaction data will be aggregated into the company's data center, which is no different from government-issued currencies. Once the company that backs the virtual currency goes bankrupt, or the central server of the general ledger is compromised by hackers, the virtual currency will face the risk of collapse. Satoshi Nakamoto optimized David Chaum's Ecash, integrating timestamps, proof-of-work mechanisms, asymmetric encryption technology, and the structure of UTSO, and finally invented Bitcoin.
It can be seen that blockchain is not a single technology, it is a collection of a series of above-mentioned technologies. Bitcoin is just a typical example of the first large-scale application of blockchain technology. In the future, blockchain technology can be applied to many fields such as financial services and social life.
D. One article to understand the Internet blockchain
One article to understand the Internet blockchain
One article to understand the Internet blockchain. To understand the blockchain, you have to Study the brief history of blockchain technology development starting from the birth of the Internet, discover the motivations for blockchain, and infer the future of blockchain. Let’s understand the Internet blockchain in one article.
Understand the Internet blockchain in one article 1The originator of blockchain is mahjong, and the earliest blockchain was invented by the Chinese! The blockchain is just like Mahjong, except that Mahjong has fewer blocks. Mahjong only has 136 blocks. The rules of Mahjong vary from place to place and can be regarded as a hard fork of Bitcoin.
As the oldest blockchain project, Mahjong has a group of four miners. The first one to dig out the 13 correct hash values will get the accounting rights and rewards. It adopts the method of being willing to admit defeat and not cheating. Thousands of consensus mechanisms!
Mahjong is decentralized, everyone can be the banker, and it is completely peer-to-peer.
Mining pool = commission from the boss of the chess and card room.
It cannot be tampered with, because convincing the other three people requires too much computing power and physical strength.
A typical value Internet. The value in my pocket didn't last eight rounds before it went into their pockets.
The Chinese are basically good at playing mahjong. In terms of blockchain, they produce 70% to 80% of the world’s mining machines and have the most computing power in the world, accounting for about 77% of the computing power.
Mahjong is actually the earliest blockchain project:
1. A group of four miners. The miner who first collides with the correct hash value of 13 numbers can obtain the accounting rights. and get rewarded.
2. It cannot be tampered with. Because convincing the other three people requires too much computing power and physical strength.
3. Typical value Internet. The valuable digital currency www.gendan5.com/digitalcurrency/btc.html in my pocket ran into their pockets after eight rounds.
4. Decentralization, everyone can be a banker, it is completely peer-to-peer.
5. UTXO, unspent transaction expenses.
There is another blockchain method of credit, assuming that everyone has no cash
Let’s take a closer look. When everyone reaches a consensus, we see There is no intermediary or third party to judge whether C wins, and the rewards given to C do not need to be transferred to C through a third party. They are all direct peer-to-peer transactions. This process is decentralized, and players (miners) record their own records. After recording the results of the first game, B Dahu drew thirteen pieces, and B got Jia Dongfeng. After the record was completed, a complete block was generated, but remember, this was only the first game. In the entire blockchain , this is just a node. After the 8 rounds mentioned at the beginning, there are 8 nodes.(block), 8 blocks are connected together to form a complete ledger, which is the blockchain. Because everyone has one of this ledger, it is a distributed ledger. The purpose is to prevent someone from tampering with the record. At the end of the game, it is clear who wins and who loses.
Four men (A, B, C, and D) got together to play mahjong for money. None of them brought any cash, so they asked a beautiful woman (centralized) to keep a book and record who won how much money in each round. , Who lost how much? At the end of the day, everyone uses Alipay or WeChat to pay and settle the ledger. However, if this beauty made a mistake in accounting or was bribed by one of the four people in advance to make a mistake on purpose, there is no guarantee that the outcome of this game will be fair, just, and reasonable. ,dont you agree? then what should we do? If you "play mahjong", you can use "blockchain" as the game rules and adapt it as follows:
Four men (A, B, C and D) got together to play mahjong for money. No one brought any cash. B said Let the beauty she brought keep accounts. A said that none of us knew this beauty, so the four of them, A, B, C, and D, agreed that everyone would keep accounts at the same time (decentralized) on their mobile phones (blockchain nodes) for each game. ), after finally playing mahjong and paying with electronic money directly on the mobile phone, everyone checked the accounting results. The accounting results should have been the same.
Assume that the original result is the account recorded on A’s mobile phone: B owes A 10 yuan. However, the record on B's mobile phone shows that there is no debt, but the other two people (C and D) have the same accounting as A, so the settlement is still based on the majority rule. In addition, everyone has a bad impression of B's integrity. Next The first time I play mahjong, I won’t take B to play with me.
Unless B bribes two people (C and D) in advance to deliberately cheat, but the cost of B bribes them is 100,000 yuan (10,000 times the default of 10 yuan), then in common sense, B only You can choose to give up because the cost of counterfeiting is too high.
Assume that even if B is secretly willing to pay a high price of 100,000 yuan to buy C and D to do this silly cat transaction with huge losses during the card game, the rules of the blockchain are to keep accounts based on timestamps. Yes, it turns out that B owed A 10 yuan when debiting the account at 1 p.m., that is, when C and D changed the account at 3 p.m., time is irreversible and they can only record 3 p.m., which does not comply with the rules of the game. .
In fact, in 2017 the blogger has developed a set of Mahjong coins
China’s earliest blockchain project: a group of four miners, first starting from 148 random numbers The miner who collides with the correct hash value of 14 numbers can obtain an accounting right incentive. Since distributed accounting requires the consensus of several other miners, each accounting transaction takes about ten minutes.
Understanding the Internet Blockchain in One Article 21. Before the birth of Bitcoin, 5 Internet technologies that will have a significant impact on the future of the blockchain
In 1969, the Internet was born in the United States. Since then, the Internet has expanded from four research institutions in the United States to the entire planet. In terms of application, it has expanded from the earliest military and scientific research toIn all aspects of human life, in the nearly 50 years since the birth of the Internet, there have been five technologies that have particularly significant significance for the future development of blockchain.
1. The TCP/IP protocol born in 1974: determines the position of blockchain in the Internet technology ecosystem
In 1974, the most critical step in the development of the Internet was taken by The TCP/IP protocol, the core communication technology of the Internet jointly developed by American scientists Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, was officially launched.
This protocol enables the transmission of information between different computers and even different types of networks. All computers connected to the network can communicate and interact as long as they comply with this protocol.
In layman's terms, Internet data can travel tens of thousands of kilometers to reach the computer users who need it. This is mainly because the Internet world has formed a unified information dissemination mechanism. That is to say, Internet devices follow a unified law-TCP/IP protocol when disseminating information.
Understanding the TCP/IP protocol is of great significance to mastering the Internet and blockchain. After the invention of TCP/IP in 1974, the entire Internet was between the underlying hardware devices, the intermediate network protocols and the network Addresses have always been relatively stable, but an endless stream of innovative applications are emerging at the top application layer, including news, e-commerce, social networks, QQ, WeChat, and blockchain technology.
In other words, in the technical ecology of the Internet, blockchain is a new technology at the top layer of the Internet - the application layer. Its emergence, operation and development have not affected the underlying infrastructure and communication protocols of the Internet. , is still one of the many software technologies that operates according to the TCP/IP protocol.
2. Cisco router technology born in 1984: an imitation of blockchain technology
In December 1984, Cisco was established in the United States. The founder was a professor from Stanford University. A couple, Leonard Posak, director of the computer center, and Sandy Lerner, director of the business school's computer center, designed a networking device called a "multiprotocol router" that was placed on the Internet's communication lines to help data Get from one end of the Internet to the other thousands of kilometers away accurately and quickly.
In the entire Internet hardware layer, tens of millions of routers are busy working, directing the transmission of Internet information. An important function of Cisco routers is that each router saves a complete Internet device address table. Once something happens Changes will be synchronized to tens of millions of other routers (theoretically), ensuring that each router can calculate the shortest and fastest path.
When you see the operation process of the router, you will feel very familiar. That is the important feature of the blockchain later. The significance of understanding the router lies in the important features of the blockchain. It has been implemented on the router in 1984. For the router, even if the node device is damaged or attacked by hackers, it will not be affected.affects the transmission of information throughout the Internet.
3. The B/S (C/S) architecture that was born with the World Wide Web: the opponent of the blockchain and the target of attempted subversion
The World Wide Web is referred to as the Web and is divided into Web clients and server. All updated information is only modified on the Web server. Thousands, tens of thousands, or even tens of millions of other client computers do not retain the information and only obtain the information data when accessing the server. This structure is also often referred to as the Internet B/S architecture is a centralized architecture. This architecture is also the most important architecture of the current Internet. Internet giants such as Google, Facebook, Tencent, Alibaba, and Amazon have all adopted this architecture.
Understanding the B/S architecture will be of great significance to the subsequent understanding of blockchain technology. The B/S architecture is that data is only stored in the central server, and all other computers obtain information from the server. Blockchain technology has tens of millions of computers without a center, and all data will be synchronized to all computers. This is the core of blockchain technology.
4. Peer-to-Peer Network (P2P): Blockchain The father of the chain and its technical basis
Peer-to-peer network P2P is another Internet infrastructure corresponding to C/S (B/S). Its characteristic is that multiple computers connected to each other are connected to each other. In a peer-to-peer position, there is no distinction between master and slave. A computer can be used as a server, setting shared resources for use by other computers in the network, and as a workstation.
Napster is one of the earliest P2P systems, mainly used for music resource sharing. Napster cannot be regarded as a true peer-to-peer network system. On March 14, 2000, a message was posted on the mailing list of the underground hacker site Slashdot in the United States, saying that AOL's Nullsoft department had released Gnutella, an open source Napster clone software.
In the Gnutella distributed peer-to-peer network model, each networked computer is functionally peer, serving as both a client and a server, so Gnutella is called the first true peer-to-peer network model. Network Architecture.
In the past 20 years, some Internet technology giants such as Microsoft and IBM, as well as liberals, hackers, and even criminals who infringe intellectual property rights, have continued to promote the development of peer-to-peer networks. Of course, those on the Internet want to strengthen information sharing. The idealists also put a lot of enthusiasm into peer-to-peer networks. Blockchain is a software application based on a peer-to-peer network architecture. It is a benchmark application for peer-to-peer networks trying to break out from the silence of the past.
5. Hash algorithm: the key to generating Bitcoin and tokens (tokens)
The hash algorithm converts numbers of any length into fixed-length values using a hash function. Algorithms, famous hash functions such as: MD4, MD5, SHS, etc. It is a cryptographic letter defined by the American National Institute of Standards and TechnologyA member of the tribe.
This family of algorithms is crucial to the functioning of the entire world. From Internet application stores, emails, anti-virus software, to browsers, etc., all of them are using secure hashing algorithms. It can determine whether Internet users have downloaded what they want, and it can also determine whether Internet users are involved in man-in-the-middle attacks or network attacks. Victim of a phishing attack.
The process of blockchain and its application to generate new coins from Bitcoin or other virtual currencies is to use the function of the hash algorithm to perform operations to obtain numbers that meet the format requirements, and then the blockchain program gives Bitcoin rewards.
Mining, including Bitcoin and tokens, is actually a small mathematical game built with a hash algorithm. However, because of the fierce competition, people all over the world used powerful servers to perform calculations in order to get the rewards first. As a result, many computers on the Internet participated in this little mathematical game, which even consumed more than 40% of the electricity in some countries.
2. The birth and technical core of blockchain
The birth of blockchain should be the most unusual and mysterious invention and technology in the history of human science, because in addition to blockchain, to So far, there is no major invention in the history of modern science whose inventor cannot be found.
On October 31, 2008, Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonym) published a paper on the cryptography mailing group - "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". In this paper, the author claims to have invented a new electronic currency system that is not controlled by governments or institutions. Blockchain technology is the basis for supporting the operation of Bitcoin.
The preprint address of the paper is at http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf. From an academic point of view, this paper is far from a qualified paper. The main body of the article is composed of 8 flow charts. It is composed of corresponding explanatory text, no nouns and terms are defined, and the format of the paper is also very irregular.
In January 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto released an application case of blockchain on the SourceForge website - the open source software of the Bitcoin system. After the release of the open source software, it is said that Satoshi Nakamoto mined approximately 1 million bits. Coin. A week later, Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 Bitcoins to cryptography expert Hal Finney, which became the first transaction in Bitcoin history. With the booming development of Bitcoin, research on blockchain technology has also begun to show explosive growth.
It is indeed difficult to fully and clearly explain the blockchain to the public. We use Bitcoin as the object to introduce the technical characteristics of the blockchain as simply as possible but in depth.
1. Blockchain is a peer-to-peer network (P2P) software application
As we mentioned before, at the beginning of the 21st century, the Internet formed two major types of applications. Architecture, centralized B/S architecture and non-centered peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, Alibaba, Sina, Amazon, network, etc.Many Internet giants have a centralized B/S architecture. To put it simply, data is placed on giant servers. We ordinary users access the servers of Alibaba, Sina and other websites through mobile phones and personal computers.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, there have been many software applications for freely sharing music, videos, and paper materials. Most of them use a peer-to-peer network (P2P) architecture, that is, there is no central server, everyone's personal computer They are all servers and clients, with equal status. However, this type of application has never become popular. The main reasons are large resource consumption and intellectual copyright issues. Blockchain is a software application in this field.
2. Blockchain is a peer-to-peer network (P2P) software application that synchronizes information across the entire network
Peer-to-peer networks also have many application methods. In many cases, everyone is not required to Each computer keeps the same information. Everyone only stores the information they need, and downloads it to other computers when needed.
However, in order to support Bitcoin financial transactions, the blockchain requires that every transaction that occurs must be written into historical transaction records and change information be sent to all computers with Bitcoin programs installed. Every computer with Bitcoin software installed maintains the latest and complete Bitcoin historical transaction information.
The characteristics of blockchain's network-wide synchronization and network-wide backup are often referred to as blockchain information security, and the source cannot be changed. Although it is still not absolutely safe in practice, when the number of users is very large, it does have certain security advantages in preventing information tampering.
3. Blockchain is a peer-to-peer (P2P) software application that uses a hash algorithm to generate "tokens" to synchronize information across the entire network
Area The first application of the blockchain was the famous Bitcoin. When discussing Bitcoin, a term that is often mentioned is "mining". So what exactly is mining?
The metaphor is that the blockchain program gives the miners (players) 256 coins, numbered 1, 2, 3...256. Each time a Hash operation is performed, it is like tossing a coin. 256 coins are thrown at the same time. After landing, if all the coins with the first 70 numbers happen to be heads. The miner can tell the blockchain program this number, and the blockchain will reward the miner with 50 Bitcoins.
From the perspective of software programs, Bitcoin mining is a mathematical game built using the hash SHA256 function. The blockchain first stipulates a winning mode in this small game: a 256-bit hash number is given, but the last 70 bits of the hash number are all 0, and then the player (miner) continuously enters various numbers. Give the hash SHA256 function and see if you can use this function to get a number with 70 zeros. If you find one, the blockchain program will reward the player with 50 Bitcoins. Actual mining and rewards are more complex, but the above example expresses the core process of mining and obtaining Bitcoin.
When Bitcoin was born in 2009, each bounty was 50 Bitcoins. Ten minutes after its birth, the first batch of 50 Bitcoins was generated, and the total currency amount at this time was 50. Subsequently, Bitcoin increased at a rate of about 50 every 10 minutes. When the total amount reaches 10.5 million (50% of 21 million), the bounty is halved to 25. When the total amount reaches 15.75 million (new output is 5.25 million, which is 50% of 1050), the bounty is further halved to 12.5. According to the design of the Bitcoin program, the total number of Bitcoins is 21 million.
From the above introduction, Bitcoin can be seen as a guessing game based on a peer-to-peer network architecture. The Bitcoin information rewarded for each correct guess will be transmitted to all players and recorded. into each player's history database.
4. Smart contracts, tokens, ICOs and blockchain basic platforms generated by blockchain technology due to the rise of Bitcoin
From the above introduction, Bitcoin technology It is not a new technology falling from the sky, but a clever combination of various original Internet technologies, such as peer-to-peer network architecture, network-wide synchronization of routing, and network security encryption technology. It can be regarded as a combination of innovative algorithm games. .
Because Bitcoin can be exchanged for legal currency, purchased in kind, and made huge profits through appreciation, the whole world is not calm. With the attitude that if you can do it, I can do it, many people have created their own imitation Bitcoin software applications. At the same time, taking advantage of the difficulty for the government to regulate peer-to-peer networks, various altcoins exploded together with Bitcoin. There have been many incidents of fraud and absconding, which have gradually attracted the attention of governments around the world.
Blockchain basic platform: It is still quite technically difficult to create currency using the blockchain technology framework. At this time, basic technology platforms such as Ethereum, the blockchain basic platform, have emerged, making it convenient for ordinary people. Create a "Bitcoin"-like software program, each showing its magical powers, inviting people to join the game to mine coins, speculate on coins, and gain profits from it.
Pass or token: If each "Bitcoin" or "Altcoin" uses a hash algorithm to create a guessing game and generates its own "currency", this "currency" is collectively referred to as " "Certificate" or "Token".
ICO: Since Bitcoin and Ethereum have been exchanged with the legal currencies of various countries, when other new virtual currencies are issued, only Bitcoin and Ethereum are allowed to purchase the new issued coins. This process of issuing coins It’s called ICO. The emergence of ICO has amplified the transaction volume of Bitcoin and Ethereum. At the same time, many ICO projects are completely based on nihilistic projects, resulting in a large number of frequent fraud cases. This further deepens society’s negative understanding of virtual currencies generated by blockchain.
Smart contract: It can be seen as a software function on the blockchain. It is a program that assists various virtual currency transactions on the blockchain. The specific function is like the fund custody of Alipay on Taobao. When a user receives the goods and confirms them on Alipay, the funds are automatically paid to the buyer and owner, smart contractIt also assumes this intermediary payment function in blockchain applications such as Bitcoin.
3. The historical status and future prospects of blockchain technology in the Internet
1. Where does blockchain stand in Internet technology? It is a new software and architecture at the top level.
We mentioned in the previous introduction to TCP/IP that blockchain, like browsers, QQ, WeChat, online game software, mobile APPs, etc., is a software form of the top layer of the Internet - the application layer. . Its operation still relies on the TCP/IP architecture system to transmit data. But unlike most application layer software, it does not adopt the central software architecture of C/S (B/S). Instead, an unusual peer-to-peer network architecture is adopted. From this point of view, blockchain cannot subvert the Internet infrastructure.
2. Who does blockchain want to subvert? Want to subvert the B/S (C/S) structure of the World Wide Web.
It attempts to subvert the B/S, C/S structure of the World Wide Web, which was born in 1989. Said before. Since 1989, European physicist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and gave up applying for a patent. In the past nearly 30 years, companies including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba, Internet, Tencent and other companies have used the B/S (C/S) structure of the World Wide Web to grow into Internet giants.
In their headquarters, a powerful central server cluster was established to store massive amounts of data. Hundreds of millions of users obtained the data they needed from the giant servers. This also led to the emergence of cloud computing, and then the Internet giants Open up your unused central server resources to further absorb data from enterprises, governments, and individuals. Centralized Internet giants have an increasing influence on the world, countries, and Internet users.
The goal of blockchain is to try to reduce the influence of Internet giants by distributing data to each Internet user’s computer. It can be seen that the real opponent of blockchain and what it wants to subvert is the 1990 The B/S (C/S) structure born in 2007. But whether it can be subverted depends on its technical advantages and bottlenecks.
3. Technical flaws of blockchain: dilemmas caused by the pursuit of complete equality and freedom
The technical flaws of blockchain first come from its peer-to-peer network architecture. For example For example, Taobao currently has a B/S structure, and massive data is stored in the Taobao server cluster computer room. Hundreds of millions of consumers access the Taobao server website through their browsers to obtain the latest information and historical information.
If blockchain technology is used, hundreds of millions of people will retain a complete Taobao database on their personal computers or mobile phones. Every time a transaction occurs, it will be synchronized to hundreds of millions of other users. This is completely unachievable in reality. The amount of data transferred and stored is too large. It is equivalent to setting up and running hundreds of millions of Taobao websites at the same time.
Therefore, blockchain cannot be applied to projects with large amounts of data, and even smaller website projects will have difficulty using blockchain. arriveIn 2018, Bitcoin had been running for nearly 10 years, and the accumulated transaction data had caused the entire system to collapse.
So the blockchain has adopted many alternative methods, such as establishing relay nodes and lightning nodes. These two concepts can also make people confused. In layman's terms, the blockchain will ask it for The subversive object B/S structure has been studied, and a data server center has been established to become the relay node of the blockchain, which can also be accessed with a browser-like terminal. This is the lightning node of the blockchain.
This change can alleviate the technical shortcomings of the blockchain, but it does make the blockchain what it opposes, centralization. It can be seen that pure blockchain technology has major flaws due to its technical characteristics and cannot be widely used like the World Wide Web. If the technology is upgraded and some parts adopt a B/S (C/S) structure, the blockchain will become centralized. The information node no longer maintains the dream when it was born.
4. Looking at the future prospects of blockchain from the Internet brain model
We know that the Internet generally refers to the Internet that connects computer networks around the world. On this basis The development of a global Internet network covering the whole world is called the Internet, which is a network structure that is interconnected.
Since the birth of the Internet in 1969, humans have innovated in the Internet field from different directions, and there is no unified plan to build the Internet into a structure. When the wheel of time reaches 2017, with the advent of artificial intelligence, With the vigorous development of science and technology such as the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, robots, virtual reality, and the industrial Internet, when humans look up to see the giant systems they have created, the model and architecture of the Internet brain have become increasingly clear.
Through nearly 20 years of development, relying on the B/S and C/S structures of the World Wide Web, Tencent QQ, WeChat, Facebook, Weibo, and Twitter Amazon have developed structures similar to neuron networks. Internet devices, especially personal computers and mobile phones, map personal data and functional space on the giant's central server through the software on the device, allowing them to add friends, communicate and transfer information. Internet giants continue to optimize the software versions of hundreds of millions of terminals through software upgrades in central server clusters. In the neurological system, this is a standard central nervous system structure.
The birth of the blockchain provides another neuron model. Instead of uniformly managing neurons in the centralized services of giants, each terminal, including personal computers and personal mobile phones, becomes an independent neuron node. , retaining an independent data space and synchronizing mutual information. In the neurological system, this is a distributed neural structure with no center and multiple neural nodes.
Interestingly, these two different types of neural structures appear in the development of the nervous system. In lower organisms, blockchain-like neural structures have appeared. There are multiple ganglia with the same function, all of which can command body activities and reactions. However, as organisms evolve, these ganglia gradually merge. When they evolve into higherWhen we are living things, the central nervous system appears, which contains a large number of neurons that interact with each other.
4. Judgment on the future status of blockchain in the Internet
1. Understanding of Bitcoin: a guessing game based on peer-to-peer network architecture (P2P), Through clever financial and public opinion operations, it has become a "world currency" that is not subject to government supervision.
2. Understanding of blockchain: a peer-to-peer (P2P) software application that uses hashing algorithms to generate "tokens" to synchronize information across the entire network.
3. Blockchain has specific uses, such as large-scale election voting, large-scale gambling, financial transactions that circumvent government financial supervision, etc. It still has irreplaceable uses.
4. In more cases, blockchain technology will rely on the B/S and C/S structures of the Internet to achieve functional expansion, but overall it is still a supplement to the existing technology of the Internet. Most of the application scenarios currently envisaged by blockchain can be implemented using B/S and C/S structures, with higher efficiency and more mature technology.
5. Whether from the perspective of information transmission efficiency and resource consumption, or from the evolution of the nervous system, blockchain cannot become the mainstream architecture of the Internet, let alone a subversive and revolutionary leader of the future Internet.
6. Of course, Internet giants developed with B/S and C/S structures also have their problems, but these can be gradually solved through commercial and political methods in the future.
