How to prove my mother is my mother? A comic book explains Bitcoin blockchain technology!

For people who spend all day in the cryptocurrency circle, blockchain technology is not difficult to understand. But for people outside this circle, this concept seems much more obscure and difficult to understand, which must have made quite a few people feel confused.

In the "cryptocurrency circle", there is a story about an "old village chief" (the idea of ​​a lawyer who has been working for many years). After listening to this story, you will definitely have a preliminary understanding of "blockchain".

The story goes like this...

Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and in the mountain there was a village. In the village there was an old village chief who was highly respected. Usually, the villagers would carry a bag of gold bars to exchange for goods (a rich village), but this method was very inconvenient.

Then one day, the old village chief suddenly announced that all gold bars should be put into the village committee's vault, and he would help everyone keep accounts, in order to facilitate everyone to exchange goods. In return, he could extract transaction fees and daily management fees from the transactions.

For example, if Zhang San wants to exchange 4 gold bars for Li Si's cow, the old village chief must first check whether Zhang San has 4 gold bars. If confirmed, he will transfer the gold bars to Li Si's name in the account book, and then let Li Si give the cow to Zhang San.
At first everyone thought it was very convenient, but gradually various problems began to emerge.

As the transaction volume increased, the old village chief was unable to handle it all by himself. Sometimes his eyes were blurry and he made mistakes in the accounts. Looking at the gold bars in the warehouse every day, the old village chief felt itchy and would occasionally put the villagers’ accounts under his own name. The villagers tolerated it once or twice, but the old village chief did not know how to restrain himself and his crime was finally exposed.

One day, the village chief's grandson played with fire out of prank, and part of the account book was burned, and all the villagers' accounts were messed up.

The above are the internal problems of the "Tuhao Village". There is another problem in the meantime: although the villagers of the "Tuhao Village" really want to record the transactions with the villagers of the neighboring "Diaosi Village" into one account, the people of the neighboring Diaosi Village said, "The money of our Diaosi Village can be recorded in your account book, but the premise is that why do we believe that there will be no problem with your village chief?"

Just when everyone was having a headache over these problems, a man named Satoshi Nakamoto came through the time tunnel and proposed a method called "ledger chain" (Note: Satoshi Nakamoto is an iconic figure in Bitcoin technology).

The gold bars are still kept at the village committee first, and the initial accounts are still converted into records in the account, and everyone knows every record in this account book.

In the first transaction, Zhang San wanted to exchange 4 gold bars for Li Si's cow, so everyone started to look through the account books and rushed to calculate the account. Wang Wu was the first to calculate the total account "Zhang San did have 4 gold bars and traded with Li Si" (the public treasury would give a little money to the first person to calculate the account), and Wang Wu could get a reward for this, but he also needed to tell the whole village about the transaction through the radio, and then everyone would use the "001" account book page to record the transaction and put it in the account book;

When Li Liu wanted to exchange 3 gold bars for Chen Qi's pig, everyone started to look through the account book and the 001 account page to calculate the account. Zhang Ba was the first to calculate that "Chen Liu did have 3 gold bars and exchanged the pig with Chen Qi". Zhang Ba was rewarded and told the whole village about the transaction through the radio. Then everyone used the "002" account page to record the transaction and wrote "Please see 001 for the last transaction" on it, and then put it in the account book together with the "001" account page;

The whole process is to offer rewards, settle accounts, record transactions and broadcast transactions. By analogy, a ledger chain is formed on the ledger.

This solves several of the above problems at the same time: based on the order on the ledger chain, the assets and transaction status of any villager can be determined. Even if a ledger is burned, it doesn’t matter, because everyone has one, and it is exactly the same; since the ledger and algorithm are publicly broadcast and in order, this eliminates any problems of fraud or duplicate transactions; similarly, since the accounting is open, people from neighboring villages can come and trade; finally, it can also eliminate the phenomenon of "excessive charges" by the village chief.

From then on, the villagers lived a happy life.

At this point in the story, some people may ask what exactly is blockchain?

Textbook definition: Blockchain (English: Blockchain or Block chain) is a distributed database, a string of data blocks generated by cryptographic methods. Each data block contains information about a Bitcoin network transaction, which is used to verify the validity of the information (anti-counterfeiting) and generate the next block.

It is easy to understand from the above story. "001", "002", "003"... Each number is a "ledger page", which is a "block" in the concept of blockchain. When they are gathered together, they form a "ledger". This physical ledger is the obscure "blockchain".

Since blockchain is a ledger, how is it different from the traditional ledger? This requires starting from the characteristics of blockchain itself.

1. Decentralization

Villagers no longer need to rely on the trust of the "central figure" - the old village chief, and no longer need to worry about the risks that may arise in the process of accounting and management. The old village chief can also be "liberated" to do other things.

2. Openness

The system is open, and the data in the ledger is open to everyone (whether in the rich village or the poor village), and anyone can query the data of any coded ledger page in the ledger. In this way, transactions between villages can be realized.

3. Autonomy

The villagers have reached an agreement on how to record the account book, and the agreement is open and transparent. The villagers can fully trust each other and further realize autonomy, and every transaction can be fully transparently presented in the account book.

4. Information cannot be tampered with

Once the transaction information is verified by all villagers and added to the ledger, it will be stored permanently. Any modification of the account in the ledger by a single villager is invalid, so the data reliability of the ledger is extremely high.

As far as the current situation is concerned, traditional financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies still play the role of "old village chief". They need to rely on the credit of the country or institutions to make users trust them, so as to ensure the transaction.

Blockchain application: It is easy to prove that "my mother is my mother"

We have introduced many advantages of blockchain technology above, so where can it be actually applied? ?

"How can I prove that my mother is my mother?!" This seemingly ridiculous feeling is actually filled with helplessness. Once this news was released, it resonated with many people. Many people have encountered maddening proofs in the process of handling affairs - proving that your mother is your mother, proving that you have never been married, etc. Such proofs consume a lot of time and cost, which is really worrying.

But if we can use blockchain technology, the situation will be much better. An important application of blockchain is the distributed intelligent identity authentication system, where all information is recorded completely and accurately (recorded on the blockchain) and cannot be tampered with. This can not only ensure that the information will not be stolen by illegal elements, but also help you make the proof you need in an emergency.

Now when we talk about blockchain, we will also talk about Bitcoin. What is the relationship between the two?

Blockchain is the underlying technology of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin may be the most famous application on blockchain. In the future, there will be more applications of blockchain technology.

The identity authentication system we mentioned above is one of the applications. In addition, smart contracts, securities trading, e-commerce, the Internet of Things, social communications, file storage, and equity crowdfunding are all areas where blockchain technology can be applied.

Blockchain technology has attracted banks, exchanges, auditing firms, technology giants, etc. According to Sina Technology statistics, by the end of 2015, more than 20 of the world's top financial institutions and venture funds had announced their participation in various blockchain application development projects.

Since 2016, more and more domestic entrepreneurs and investors have begun to pay attention to blockchain, and have established multiple blockchain alliances. However, considering various factors, it is still unknown whether the future development will be smooth.