Blockchain is almost always right, and has an incredible number of associated opportunities – from storage, to coding, and far beyond. The most popular and supported example is the Ethereum smart contract, which has revolutionized the coding and cryptocurrency world forever. It showed thousands that crypto isn’t just for payments, but for coders and programmers alike. With so many choices, programmers or cryptocoiners may be wondering – what’s so great about the blockchain? In this article, we have all the information you need so you can make your own decision.
Blockchain has many pros – the fact that data can be stored on it is a huge one. A notable example is in the very beginnings of Bitcoin – the genesis block. What’s interesting about this specific block is that it doesn’t reference any other block, because there were not any blocks to reference, and so it has a lot of zero bytes. All blocks have a special section called the coinbase, which is the area that is capable of storing the actual data.
Blockchain isn’t only present in Bitcoin, though; Ethereum is another notable example, with smart contracts that can execute any input code for a small fee. This allows for elaborate plans and security check systems to be put in place. The fact that those lines of code cannot be interfered with is also amazing. Coding isn’t the only pro with cryptocurrency, however; the blockchain can also support transfer of funds, which is what most people are familiar with. Funds can be transferred using blocks, which are mined. They also have a set difficulty to control blocktime, and with a low enough difficulty, funds can be transferred almost instantaneously. The blocks also create a ‘confirmation’ system that makes sure double-spends, which are discussed below, don’t occur. This means that the blockchain not only offers permanent storage of code, but also of funds. Nothing like this has ever been created prior to the creation of cryptocurrencies.
Now onto the cons: we’ll only cover double-spending here, which is a huge disadvantage. Double spending is the reversal of a transaction to another address, and is a huge factor as to why confirmations are required with most bitcoin-based payment systems. There are lots of double-spends happening, but fortunately, most are very minor and only deal with a few cents. This is still an issue, however, and will likely never disappear completely. Confirmations do help prevent this, but it’s still not a guarantee.
With these listed cons and pros, we hope we’ve provided you an accurate view of blockchain. Nothing is perfect, but the system keeps improving and gets better every day.
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