Blockchain is a term used in information technology.
With the rise of blockchain technology, more and more people have some understanding and familiarity with blockchain technology. Blockchain itself is a technology, and this technology is fundamentally different from the traditional centralized technology. Generally speaking, the core technology of blockchain mainly consists of four parts. Some people in the industry call such different characteristics "four core technologies of blockchain".
Distributed storage
In simple terms, it is a data storage technology that stores data in multiple places, and the stored data can be shared among multiple participants. Everyone can participate and have the same power to record data together, which mainly plays the function of data storage.
Ii. Consensus mechanism
Because in the distributed network of blockchain, there is no central authority. Therefore, networks need a decision-making mechanism to facilitate consensus among participants. The consensus mechanism is a mechanism to coordinate the processing of data. Consensus mechanism mainly plays the role of data maintenance.
Smart contracts
Is a computer protocol designed to propagate, validate, or enforce contracts in an informational manner. It's kind of like a technology where you make the rules and the machine executes them automatically.
Cryptography
Is a special encryption and decryption technology, blockchain system, the application of a variety of cryptography technology, including hash algorithm, public and private keys, digital signature and so on, to ensure the data security of the whole system, and prove the ownership of the data.
The relationship between the four core technologies:
1. Distributed storage builds the basic preliminary framework of blockchain
It is equivalent to a distributed database. When a piece of data is generated and processed by everyone, it will be stored in this database. Therefore, distributed storage plays the role of data storage in the blockchain.
2. Consensus mechanism coordinates node behavior and clarifies data processing in blockchain
Because distributed storage is decentralized, the structure of blockchain network presents a distributed state, so every user can freely join in and participate in the increase, deletion, change and check of data. But at the same time, it is a headache, that is, the more people participate in the network, the more difficult it is to maintain the same appeal.
Another mechanism is needed to harmonise accounts across all nodes. At this time, the consensus mechanism emerges. A set of rules is formulated to clarify the data processing process of each person, and the opinions among nodes are unified by competing for the management right. Finally, the data processed by the person who finally obtains the management right is used for the unification of the whole network. Therefore, consensus mechanism plays a role of coordinating node behavior and clarifying data processing in blockchain.
Cryptography determines the underlying data architecture
Instead of simply packaging the data into a distributed database, the underlying data architecture is determined by blockchain cryptography.
The data block packaged by the database will be processed into a chain structure through the hash function in cryptography. However, as the hash algorithm has the characteristics of unidirectional and tamper-resistant, the data can not be tampered with and can be traced as long as it is on the chain in the blockchain network.
In addition, accounts are encrypted using asymmetric encryption to ensure data security and verify data ownership.
4. Smart contracts are responsible for the execution and application of data
Finally, you can on the objective conditions of distributed storage, set up smart contract, when we need to solve the "trust crisis", through the intelligent contract, can be agreed upon between the user by the code in the form of conditional filtering, and through the program execution, and block the data in the chain, will be smart to make calls, contract decomposition. So smart contracts play a role in the execution and application of data in blockchain.