As we enter into a brand new digital era there is so much hype about a variety of new and innovative technologies such as Internet Of Things, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Big Data and Blockchain.

Each of these technologies have opened up many a door for a range of companies in the tech industry, helping them improve their services and products, and pin pointing their market niche. Whilst we are learning new methods everyday on how to harness these technologies to our best advantages, there is one particular software we want to address and that’s blockchain.

To educate people who consider themselves“non-technical” here’s what you need to know….

Previously when you wanted to share digital information it would usually be copied between software. However thanks to blockchain the information can now be distributed instead of copied, as it maintains an ever growing number of data records, and transactions. The technology highlights a chain of transaction blocks dictated by specific rules.

How does it work?

1. An individual or brand requests a transaction
2. The transaction is then broadcasted to a P2P network made up of computers otherwise known as “Nodes”
3. The Nodes then validate said transaction and the user’s status based on its algorithms. These transactions include the exchange of contracts, records, cryptocurrency and much more.
4. Once the transaction has been verified it is combined with other transactions to create a new block of the data for the ledger.
5. The new block is then added to the existing blockchain, and will remain there permanently.
6. Transaction is then complete.

To put it in even simpler terms one blockchain enthusiast has given a more watered down way of understanding how blockchain works…

“The traditional way of sharing documents with collaboration is to send a Microsoft Word document to another recipient, and ask them to make revisions to it. The problem with that scenario is that you need to wait until receiving a return copy before you can see or make other changes because you are locked out of editing it until the other person is done with it. That’s how databases work today. Two owners can’t be messing with the same record at once.That’s how banks maintain money balances and transfers; they briefly lock access (or decrease the balance) while they make a transfer, then update the other side, then re-open access (or update again).With Google Docs (or Google Sheets), both parties have access to the same document at the same time, and the single version of that document is always visible to both of them. It is like a shared ledger, but it is a shared document. The distributed part comes into play when sharing involves a number of people.

Imagine the number of legal documents that should be used that way. Instead of passing them to each other, losing track of versions, and not being in sync with the other version, why can’t *all* business documents become shared instead of transferred back and forth? So many types of legal contracts would be ideal for that kind of workflow.You don’t need a blockchain to share documents, but the shared documents analogy is a powerful one.”

– William Mougayar Venture advisor, 4x entrepreneur, marketer & strategist. I live in Toronto, curate a lot, blog a bit, and help startups.

http://startupmanagement.org/2016/09/06/explaining-the-blockchain-via-a-google-docs-analogy/

You can start to see why so many businesses are jumping on the blockchain band wagon, especially those who are familiar with today’s trending cryptocurrency Bitcoin! Bitcoin was created by a software developer named Satoshi Nakamoto, and is the first form of digital currency that can be created and held electronically. The reason why people are investing in the technology is because it isn’t controlled by any institution.

https://www.coindesk.com/information/what-is-bitcoin/

As more businesses turn to blockchain to tighten their practices, this technology certainly has a bright future. In keeping with the demands or our customers and the industry our developers are continually updating their skill sets, so that they can provide elite blockchain solutions on a global scale.