commerce www.bahrainthismonth.com 68 December 2022 BLOCKCHAIN It’s so much more than you think. This month, Pria Masson guides us through the concept of blockchain and what it can do for so many businesses. With the collapse of FTX, cryptocurrencies are in the media for all the wrong reasons. Among these many pieces, there was a large number that seemed to assume cryptocurrencies and blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrencies, were both at risk. However, this could not be further from the truth because blockchain is the future. Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and NFT’s – these are merely small applications of blockchain technology. What is blockchain technology? Blockchain technology, at its end, is an application of Distributed Ledge Technology (DLT), which records the transaction of assets and their details in multiple places at the same time. In the ledger, each node processes and verifies each item. This then creates a record and a consensus on its accuracy. These can be used to create static records like a registry as well as a dynamic financial record. A blockchain is then a distributed ledger that tracks a shared database across multiple users. It is primarily concerned with the decentralised storage of information, consensus and accuracy of particular digital assets. With this, its application is far beyond cryptocurrencies and NFT’s. It has the potential to replace business models which rely on third party and centralised systems for verification and trust. What are the types of blockchain? Blockchains can be either public or private. Public blockchains do not need permissions and anyone can join the network or participate in the blockchain. Most of the crypto systems like Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. are based on the anonymous public blockchain system. Private blockchains on the other hand, are invitation only and run by a single entity. For instance, the Linux Foundation created the Hyperledger projects to support confidential commercial transactions.
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