Research Assessment #4 

Date: November 05, 2021

Subject: Blockchain

MLA/APA citation:“OECD Blockchain Primer.” OECD, www.oecd.org/finance/OECD-Blockchain-Primer.pdf. 

 

Analysis: 

To reiterate, my topic this year is blockchain, and for my third research assessment, I will go into a little more depth into the vocabulary related to blockchain. One of the first things I learned was the definition of a ledger. In the paper they explained a ledger as a “record book”, it holds, stores, and records all the transactions that happened between the users(nodes) in chronological order. In order to make blockchain decentralized a copy of the ledger is given to every node(user) in the network so all can access the information if necessary.

 

Next, I learned about hashes(digital footprints unique to each type of data) which are unique strings of letters and numbers created based on the information and amount for the transaction, and if any of this information is different from the previous hash (including Upper lower case letters). When and if the hash changes, the node easily notices that the block has been tampered with and will reject it.

 

From this picture, we can see that even form a small change like casing the who hash changes.

 

 

Next, I learn about the different types of blockchain

1. The public permissionless blockchain

   1. This type of blockchain was available to any and everyone and can be read, and written by anyone.

2. The Public Permissioned 

   1. This is very similar to the Public permissionless except the Permissioned means only authorized participants may write or commit to the blockchain.

3. The Consortium 

   1. This blockchain is restricted to only authorized members and all authorized members may write and read all contents. 

4. The Private Permissioned “ enterprise” 

   1. This is the most secure and restricted blockchain type. This type can only be read by a limited amount of fully authorized nodes, and only the Network operator can commit and write in the blockchain making it highly secure.

 

The last new thing I learned about in this paper was the misconception about blockchain. One misconception on the blockchain is that blockchain doesn't allow or give people total anonymity. This is true since most public blockchains allow the identity of the user to be anonymous but their accounts are not because transactions and such are viewable to others ( ledger idea), this is called pseudonymous. This process only allows trusted and reliable people into the platform and provides security to the information stored in the ledger. The second misconception is about whether blockchain is indeed immutable or not The answer to this question, is no, blockchain is not completely breakproof, however, breaking or hacking a blockchain is extremely difficult. This is because the hashes and idea of nodes checking and verifying information, through miners are extremely difficult to crack successfully. And if it did happen it is more likely that it costs more to carry out the attack than the reward earned from it. In addition, new advances in quantum computing are expected to help secure blockchain further.

 

In conclusion, the information I learned today was very beneficial to me because it allows me to gather and have a deeper understanding of what blockchain is and the technicalities behind it. However through my read, I found one thing very controversial, and this was regarding the anonymity of blockchain, I can see how many would like to keep their information private by being anonymous. But in my opinion, the point of blockchain is to secure your information and everyone else's. So in theory, if one does not do anything wrong the anonymity is unnecessary and I feel that anonymity would also cause some security issues and problems. In addition, One question I had regarding this paper is about quantum computing. I was reading about how quantum computing could make blockchain fully immutable and was sincerely curious about it. Therefore, I hope to do a brief research on this next time. 

 

In the end, I feel what I learn through this paper is important because it helps me recognize the issues with blockchain so I know what needs to be fixed. Additionally, I was able to learn more and am now better equipped with a good vocabulary.