Investopedia / Xiaojie Liu
What Is a Blockchain?
A blockchain is a distributed database or ledger that’s shared among the nodes of a pc network. As a database, a blockchain shops information electronically in digital format. Blockchains are greatest identified for their essential function in cryptocurrency techniques, such as Bitcoin, for sustaining a safe and decentralized record of transactions. The innovation with a blockchain is that it ensures the fidelity and security of a record of information and generates belief without the need for a trusted third get together.
One key distinction between a typical database and a blockchain is how the information is structured. A blockchain collects data together in groups, often identified as blocks, that hold units of information. Blocks have sure storage capacities and, when filled, are closed and linked to the beforehand filled block, forming a sequence of data generally recognized as the blockchain. All new data that follows that freshly added block is compiled into a newly shaped block that will then even be added to the chain once stuffed.
A database normally buildings its information into tables, whereas a blockchain, as its name implies, structures its information into chunks (blocks) which are strung together. This information structure inherently makes an irreversible timeline of knowledge when implemented in a decentralized nature. When a block is crammed, it’s set in stone and turns into part of this timeline. Each block in the chain is given an exact timestamp when it’s added to the chain.
Key Takeaways
* Blockchain is a kind of shared database that differs from a typical database in the way that it shops data; blockchains retailer data in blocks that are then linked collectively via cryptography.
* As new information comes in, it’s entered right into a fresh block. Once the block is filled with knowledge, it’s chained onto the previous block, which makes the data chained together in chronological order.
* Different types of information could be saved on a blockchain, but the most typical use thus far has been as a ledger for transactions.
* In Bitcoin’s case, blockchain is used in a decentralized method in order that no single individual or group has control—rather, all customers collectively retain control.
* Decentralized blockchains are immutable, which signifies that the information entered is irreversible. For Bitcoin, this means that transactions are permanently recorded and viewable to anyone.
How Does a Blockchain Work?
The goal of blockchain is to allow digital data to be recorded and distributed, however not edited. In this fashion, a blockchain is the foundation for immutable ledgers, or information of transactions that can’t be altered, deleted, or destroyed. This is why blockchains are also known as a distributed ledger technology (DLT).
First proposed as a analysis project in 1991, the blockchain concept predated its first widespread utility in use: Bitcoin, in 2009. In the years since, the use of blockchains has exploded by way of the creation of various cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi) functions, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and sensible contracts.
Transaction Process
Attributes of Cryptocurrency
Blockchain Decentralization
Imagine that a company owns a server farm with 10,000 computers used to take care of a database holding all of its client’s account data. This company owns a warehouse constructing that incorporates all of those computer systems under one roof and has full management of each of these computers and all the data contained inside them. This, however, provides a single point of failure. What occurs if the electricity at that location goes out? What if its Internet connection is severed? What if it burns to the ground? What if a bad actor erases everything with a single keystroke? In any case, the information is misplaced or corrupted.
What a blockchain does is to allow the info held in that database to be unfold out amongst a quantity of network nodes at numerous locations. This not only creates redundancy but additionally maintains the fidelity of the data saved therein—if someone tries to change a report at one occasion of the database, the other nodes wouldn’t be altered and thus would stop a bad actor from doing so. If one consumer tampers with Bitcoin’s record of transactions, all other nodes would cross-reference one another and simply pinpoint the node with the incorrect information. This system helps to determine an exact and clear order of occasions. This way, no single node within the community can alter information held within it.
Because of this, the knowledge and historical past (such as of transactions of a cryptocurrency) are irreversible. Such a report might be an inventory of transactions (such as with a cryptocurrency), but it also is possible for a blockchain to carry quite lots of different data like authorized contracts, state identifications, or a company’s product stock.
To validate new entries or information to a block, a majority of the decentralized network’s computing power would want to comply with it. To prevent unhealthy actors from validating bad transactions or double spends, blockchains are secured by a consensus mechanism such as proof of work (PoW) or proof of stake (PoS). These mechanisms permit for agreement even when no single node is in cost.
Transparency
Because of the decentralized nature of Bitcoin’s blockchain, all transactions may be transparently seen by both having a personal node or utilizing blockchain explorers that allow anyone to see transactions occurring live. Each node has its personal copy of the chain that will get updated as recent blocks are confirmed and added. This means that if you wished to, you would monitor Bitcoin wherever it goes.
For instance, exchanges have been hacked prior to now, the place those that saved Bitcoin on the trade lost every little thing. While the hacker could additionally be completely anonymous, the Bitcoins that they extracted are simply traceable. If the Bitcoins stolen in some of these hacks have been to be moved or spent somewhere, it might be recognized.
Of course, the data saved within the Bitcoin blockchain (as well as most others) are encrypted. This implies that solely the owner of a document can decrypt it to disclose their id (using a public-private key pair). As a outcome, customers of blockchains can stay nameless whereas preserving transparency.
Is Blockchain Secure?
Blockchain technology achieves decentralized safety and trust in several methods. To begin with, new blocks are always stored linearly and chronologically. That is, they are always added to the “end” of the blockchain. After a block has been added to the end of the blockchain, it is extremely troublesome to return and alter the contents of the block until a majority of the network has reached a consensus to take action. That’s as a end result of every block incorporates its personal hash, along with the hash of the block earlier than it, in addition to the previously talked about timestamp. Hash codes are created by a mathematical perform that turns digital information into a string of numbers and letters. If that info is edited in any means, then the hash code changes as nicely.
Let’s say that a hacker, who also runs a node on a blockchain community, needs to alter a blockchain and steal cryptocurrency from everybody else. If they were to alter their own single copy, it would no longer align with everyone else’s copy. When everyone else cross-references their copies towards each other, they might see this one copy stand out, and that hacker’s model of the chain can be forged away as illegitimate.
Succeeding with such a hack would require that the hacker simultaneously control and alter 51% or more of the copies of the blockchain so that their new copy becomes the majority copy and, thus, the agreed-upon chain. Such an assault would additionally require an immense sum of money and resources, as they would want to redo the entire blocks because they might now have totally different timestamps and hash codes.
Due to the scale of many cryptocurrency networks and how briskly they are growing, the fee to pull off such a feat probably would be insurmountable. This would be not only extremely expensive but also probably fruitless. Doing such a thing would not go unnoticed, as community members would see such drastic alterations to the blockchain. The network members would then hard fork off to a new version of the chain that has not been affected. This would cause the attacked version of the token to plummet in worth, making the attack finally pointless, because the dangerous actor has management of a worthless asset. The same would happen if the unhealthy actor have been to assault the model new fork of Bitcoin. It is constructed this way in order that collaborating in the community is way more economically incentivized than attacking it.
Bitcoin vs. Blockchain
Blockchain technology was first outlined in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, two researchers who wished to implement a system where doc timestamps couldn’t be tampered with. But it wasn’t until almost twenty years later, with the launch of Bitcoin in January 2009, that blockchain had its first real-world application.
The Bitcoin protocol is constructed on a blockchain. In a analysis paper introducing the digital forex, Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, referred to it as “a new electronic money system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third celebration.”
The key thing to grasp here is that Bitcoin merely uses blockchain as a method to transparently record a ledger of funds, however blockchain can, in principle, be used to immutably document any number of information factors. As mentioned above, this could presumably be in the form of transactions, votes in an election, product inventories, state identifications, deeds to houses, and much more.
Currently, tens of hundreds of tasks want to implement blockchains in quite so much of ways to help society other than just recording transactions—for instance, as a method to vote securely in democratic elections. The nature of blockchain’s immutability means that fraudulent voting would turn out to be far more difficult to occur. For example, a voting system might work such that every citizen of a country can be issued a single cryptocurrency or token. Each candidate would then be given a particular wallet address, and the voters would send their token or crypto to the address of whichever candidate for whom they wish to vote. The clear and traceable nature of blockchain would get rid of both the need for human vote counting and the flexibility of dangerous actors to tamper with physical ballots.
Blockchain vs. Banks
Blockchains have been heralded as being a disruptive force to the finance sector, and particularly with the capabilities of payments and banking. However, banks and decentralized blockchains are vastly totally different.
To see how a financial institution differs from blockchain, let’s evaluate the banking system to Bitcoin’s implementation of blockchain.
How Are Blockchains Used?
As we now know, blocks on Bitcoin’s blockchain retailer knowledge about monetary transactions. Today, there are more than 10,000 other cryptocurrency techniques running on blockchain. But it turns out that blockchain is definitely a reliable way of storing knowledge about other types of transactions as nicely.
Some firms which have already included blockchain embody Walmart, Pfizer, AIG, Siemens, Unilever, and a host of others. For example, IBM has created its Food Trust blockchain to trace the journey that meals products take to get to their places.
Why do this? The food industry has seen countless outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella, and listeria, in addition to hazardous supplies being by chance introduced to foods. In the past, it has taken weeks to find the source of those outbreaks or the purpose for illness from what persons are consuming. Using blockchain provides manufacturers the flexibility to track a food product’s route from its origin, through every cease it makes, and finally, its supply. If a food is discovered to be contaminated, then it can be traced all the way in which again through each stop to its origin. Not solely that, but these corporations can even now see every thing else it may have come in contact with, permitting the identification of the problem to occur far sooner and probably saving lives. This is one instance of blockchain in apply, but there are tons of other forms of blockchain implementation.
Banking and Finance
Perhaps no business stands to benefit from integrating blockchain into its business operations greater than banking. Financial institutions only function during business hours, usually five days every week. That means when you try to deposit a check on Friday at 6 p.m., you will likely have to attend until Monday morning to see that cash hit your account. Even if you do make your deposit during business hours, the transaction can still take one to 3 days to confirm as a outcome of sheer quantity of transactions that banks need to settle. Blockchain, then again, by no means sleeps.
By integrating blockchain into banks, consumers can see their transactions processed in as little as 10 minutes—basically the time it takes to add a block to the blockchain, regardless of holidays or the time of day or week. With blockchain, banks even have the chance to exchange funds between establishments extra rapidly and securely. In the stock trading enterprise, for instance, the settlement and clearing process can take up to three days (or longer, if buying and selling internationally), meaning that the cash and shares are frozen for that time frame.
Given the scale of the sums involved, even the few days that the money is in transit can carry significant prices and risks for banks.
Currency
Blockchain forms the bedrock for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The U.S. greenback is controlled by the Federal Reserve. Under this central authority system, a user’s information and currency are technically at the whim of their financial institution or government. If a user’s bank is hacked, the client’s personal information is in danger. If the client’s bank collapses or the consumer lives in a country with an unstable authorities, the worth of their foreign money may be in danger. In 2008, a number of failing banks have been bailed out—partially utilizing taxpayer cash. These are the concerns out of which Bitcoin was first conceived and developed.
By spreading its operations across a community of computers, blockchain allows Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to function with out the need for a government. This not only reduces danger but additionally eliminates many of the processing and transaction charges. It also can give those in nations with unstable currencies or financial infrastructures a more stable foreign money with more functions and a wider community of people and establishments with whom they’ll do business, both domestically and internationally.
Using cryptocurrency wallets for savings accounts or as a way of cost is particularly profound for those who have no state identification. Some nations could also be war-torn or have governments that lack any actual infrastructure to supply identification. Citizens of such countries could not have access to financial savings or brokerage accounts—and, subsequently, no method to safely retailer wealth.
Healthcare
Healthcare suppliers can leverage blockchain to securely retailer their patients’ medical data. When a medical document is generated and signed, it may be written into the blockchain, which offers patients with the proof and confidence that the report cannot be changed. These private well being data could be encoded and stored on the blockchain with a non-public key, in order that they’re only accessible by certain people, thereby making certain privacy.
Property Records
If you’ve ever spent time in your native Recorder’s Office, you will know that the process of recording property rights is each burdensome and inefficient. Today, a bodily deed should be delivered to a government worker at the local recording workplace, where it is manually entered into the county’s central database and public index. In the case of a property dispute, claims to the property should be reconciled with the general public index.
This process is not only costly and time-consuming—it can additionally be susceptible to human error, the place every inaccuracy makes monitoring property ownership much less environment friendly. Blockchain has the potential to eliminate the necessity for scanning documents and monitoring down bodily recordsdata in a neighborhood recording workplace. If property ownership is stored and verified on the blockchain, owners can trust that their deed is accurate and permanently recorded.
In war-torn international locations or areas that have little to no authorities or monetary infrastructure, and definitely no Recorder’s Office, it could be almost impossible to show ownership of a property. If a group of people living in such an area is in a position to leverage blockchain, then transparent and clear time strains of property ownership might be established.
Smart Contracts
A good contract is a pc code that can be constructed into the blockchain to facilitate, confirm, or negotiate a contract agreement. Smart contracts operate under a set of conditions to which users agree. When these situations are met, the phrases of the settlement are mechanically carried out.
Say, for instance, that a potential tenant want to lease an condo using a smart contract. The landlord agrees to give the tenant the door code to the apartment as soon as the tenant pays the security deposit. Both the tenant and the landlord would send their respective portions of the deal to the smart contract, which would hold onto and routinely trade the door code for the safety deposit on the date when the lease begins. If the owner doesn’t provide the door code by the lease date, then the smart contract refunds the security deposit. This would remove the fees and processes typically associated with the usage of a notary, a third-party mediator, or attorneys.
Supply Chains
As in the IBM Food Trust example, suppliers can use blockchain to record the origins of materials that they have purchased. This would allow companies to verify the authenticity of not only their merchandise but additionally widespread labels corresponding to “Organic,” “Local,” and “Fair Trade.”
As reported by Forbes, the food industry is more and more adopting the use of blockchain to track the trail and safety of meals throughout the farm-to-user journey.
Voting
As talked about above, blockchain might be used to facilitate a modern voting system. Voting with blockchain carries the potential to remove election fraud and increase voter turnout, as was examined within the November 2018 midterm elections in West Virginia. Using blockchain in this means would make votes almost impossible to tamper with. The blockchain protocol would also maintain transparency in the electoral process, reducing the personnel wanted to conduct an election and offering officials with practically prompt outcomes. This would get rid of the necessity for recounts or any actual concern that fraud might threaten the election.
Pros and Cons of Blockchain
For all of its complexity, blockchain’s potential as a decentralized type of record-keeping is nearly with out restrict. From higher person privacy and heightened safety to lower processing charges and fewer errors, blockchain technology might very properly see purposes beyond those outlined above. But there are additionally some disadvantages.
Pros * Improved accuracy by eradicating human involvement in verification
* Cost reductions by eliminating third-party verification
* Decentralization makes it tougher to tamper with
* Transactions are safe, personal, and efficient
* Transparent technology
* Provides a banking different and a way to secure personal information for citizens of nations with unstable or underdeveloped governments
Cons * Significant technology price related to mining bitcoin
* Low transactions per second
* History of use in illicit activities, similar to on the dark web
* Regulation varies by jurisdiction and remains unsure
* Data storage limitations
Benefits of Blockchains
Accuracy of the Chain
Transactions on the blockchain community are permitted by a network of hundreds of computer systems. This removes virtually all human involvement within the verification course of, leading to much less human error and an accurate document of information. Even if a pc on the network were to make a computational mistake, the error would only be made to one copy of the blockchain. For that error to spread to the the rest of the blockchain, it will have to be made by a minimal of 51% of the network’s computers—a close to impossibility for a big and growing network the dimensions of Bitcoin’s.
Cost Reductions
Typically, customers pay a financial institution to confirm a transaction, a notary to signal a document, or a minister to carry out a marriage. Blockchain eliminates the need for third-party verification—and, with it, their associated costs. For instance, business house owners incur a small fee every time they accept payments using bank cards, as a end result of banks and payment-processing firms should course of these transactions. Bitcoin, on the opposite hand, doesn’t have a central authority and has limited transaction fees.
Decentralization
Blockchain does not store any of its information in a central location. Instead, the blockchain is copied and unfold throughout a community of computers. Whenever a new block is added to the blockchain, each pc on the network updates its blockchain to reflect the change. By spreading that data across a community, rather than storing it in a single central database, blockchain becomes harder to tamper with. If a duplicate of the blockchain fell into the palms of a hacker, only a single copy of the information, quite than the entire community, could be compromised.
Efficient Transactions
Transactions placed by way of a central authority can take up to a few days to settle. If you try and deposit a verify on Friday night, for example, you may not really see funds in your account until Monday morning. Whereas financial establishments function during business hours, normally five days a week, blockchain is working 24 hours a day, seven days every week, and one year a 12 months. Transactions could be accomplished in as little as 10 minutes and could be thought of secure after just a few hours. This is particularly helpful for cross-border trades, which usually take for much longer due to time zone issues and the truth that all events must verify payment processing.
Private Transactions
Many blockchain networks function as public databases, which means that anybody with an Internet connection can view a list of the network’s transaction history. Although customers can entry details about transactions, they can not entry identifying details about the customers making those transactions. It is a typical misperception that blockchain networks like bitcoin are anonymous, when actually they’re solely confidential.
When a person makes a public transaction, their distinctive code—called a public key, as mentioned earlier—is recorded on the blockchain. Their personal information is not. If an individual has made a Bitcoin buy on an change that requires identification, then the person’s identification continues to be linked to their blockchain address—but a transaction, even when tied to a person’s name, doesn’t reveal any private information.
Secure Transactions
Once a transaction is recorded, its authenticity have to be verified by the blockchain community. Thousands of computer systems on the blockchain rush to substantiate that the details of the purchase are correct. After a computer has validated the transaction, it is added to the blockchain block. Each block on the blockchain accommodates its personal unique hash, along with the unique hash of the block earlier than it. When the data on a block is edited in any method, that block’s hash code changes—however, the hash code on the block after it would not. This discrepancy makes it extraordinarily troublesome for data on the blockchain to be changed without discover.
Transparency
Most blockchains are entirely open-source software. This signifies that anyone and everyone can view its code. This gives auditors the flexibility to evaluate cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for security. This also signifies that there is not a real authority on who controls Bitcoin’s code or how it’s edited. Because of this, anybody can counsel changes or upgrades to the system. If a majority of the community customers agree that the new version of the code with the improve is sound and worthwhile, then Bitcoin could be updated.
Banking the Unbanked
Perhaps the most profound side of blockchain and Bitcoin is the flexibility for anybody, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or cultural background, to use it. According to The World Bank, an estimated 1.7 billion adults wouldn’t have bank accounts or any technique of storing their cash or wealth. Nearly all of these individuals reside in growing international locations, where the economy is in its infancy and completely depending on money.
These folks often earn slightly cash that’s paid in bodily money. They then have to store this bodily money in hidden places in their houses or different places of living, leaving them topic to theft or unnecessary violence. Keys to a bitcoin pockets may be stored on a chunk of paper, a cheap cellphone, or even memorized if essential. For most individuals, it’s probably that these options are extra simply hidden than a small pile of cash underneath a mattress.
Blockchains of the longer term are additionally on the lookout for solutions to not only be a unit of account for wealth storage but in addition to store medical information, property rights, and a variety of different legal contracts.
Drawbacks of Blockchains
Technology Cost
Although blockchain can save customers money on transaction charges, the technology is much from free. For example, the PoW system which the bitcoin network makes use of to validate transactions, consumes vast amounts of computational energy. In the true world, the power from the millions of computer systems on the bitcoin community is near what Norway and Ukraine consume annually.
Despite the prices of mining bitcoin, users proceed to drive up their electricity bills to validate transactions on the blockchain. That’s as a outcome of when miners add a block to the bitcoin blockchain, they’re rewarded with enough bitcoin to make their time and power worthwhile. When it involves blockchains that don’t use cryptocurrency, however, miners will need to be paid or otherwise incentivized to validate transactions.
Some options to those points are beginning to arise. For instance, bitcoin-mining farms have been set up to use solar power, extra natural fuel from fracking sites, or power from wind farms.
Speed and Data Inefficiency
Bitcoin is a perfect case examine for the possible inefficiencies of blockchain. Bitcoin’s PoW system takes about 10 minutes to add a model new block to the blockchain. At that fee, it’s estimated that the blockchain network can only manage about seven transactions per second (TPS). Although other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum perform better than bitcoin, they are still restricted by blockchain. Legacy brand Visa, for context, can process sixty five,000 TPS.
Solutions to this issue have been in development for years. There are at present blockchains that are boasting greater than 30,000 TPS. Ethereum’s merge between its main net and beacon chain (Sep. 15, 2022) is predicted to allow up to one hundred,000 TPS after it rolls out an upgrade that includes sharding—a splitting of the database in order that extra devices (phones, tablets, and laptops) can run Ethereum. This will improve the network participation, cut back congestion, and improve transaction speeds.
The other issue is that every block can solely maintain a lot knowledge. The block measurement debate has been, and continues to be, one of the urgent issues for the scalability of blockchains going ahead.
Illegal Activity
While confidentiality on the blockchain network protects users from hacks and preserves privacy, it also allows for illegal buying and selling and activity on the blockchain network. The most cited instance of blockchain being used for illicit transactions might be the Silk Road, an internet darkish web illegal-drug and money laundering marketplace working from February 2011 till October 2013, when it was shut down by the FBI.
The darkish web permits customers to buy and sell illegal items with out being tracked by utilizing the Tor Browser and make illegal purchases in Bitcoin or different cryptocurrencies. Current U.S. regulations require monetary service providers to acquire information about their prospects once they open an account, confirm the identity of each customer, and make sure that prospects don’t seem on any listing of identified or suspected terrorist organizations. This system could be seen as each a professional and a con. It gives anybody access to monetary accounts but also permits criminals to extra simply transact. Many have argued that the nice uses of crypto, like banking the unbanked world, outweigh the dangerous uses of cryptocurrency, especially when most criminality is still achieved by way of untraceable money.
While Bitcoin had been used early on for such functions, its clear nature and maturity as a monetary asset has truly seen illegal activity migrate to different cryptocurrencies corresponding to Monero and Dash. Today, criminality accounts for much less than a very small fraction of all Bitcoin transactions.
Regulation
Many within the crypto house have expressed considerations about government regulation over cryptocurrencies. While it’s getting increasingly troublesome and close to inconceivable to end something like Bitcoin as its decentralized network grows, governments might theoretically make it illegal to own cryptocurrencies or take part in their networks.
This concern has grown smaller over time, as massive corporations like PayPal begin to permit the ownership and use of cryptocurrencies on its platform.
What Is a Blockchain in Simple Terms?
Simply put, a blockchain is a shared database or ledger. Pieces of data are stored in information structures generally identified as blocks, and each node of the network has an actual replica of the whole database. Security is ensured since if anyone tries to edit or delete an entry in one copy of the ledger, the majority won’t mirror this modification and will in all probability be rejected.
How Many Blockchains Are There?
The number of reside blockchains is rising every day at an ever-increasing tempo. As of 2022, there are greater than 10,000 active cryptocurrencies primarily based on blockchain, with several hundred more non-cryptocurrency blockchains.
What’s the Difference Between a Private Blockchain and a Public Blockchain?
A public blockchain, also known as an open or permissionless blockchain, is one where anyone can join the network freely and establish a node. Because of their open nature, these blockchains must be secured with cryptography and a consensus system like proof of labor (PoW).
A non-public or permissioned blockchain, then again, requires each node to be permitted before becoming a member of. Because nodes are considered to be trusted, the layers of security do not need to be as sturdy.
What Is a Blockchain Platform?
A blockchain platform permits customers and developers to create novel uses on high of an existing blockchain infrastructure. One instance is Ethereum, which has a native cryptocurrency often identified as ether (ETH). But the Ethereum blockchain also permits the creation of smart contracts and programmable tokens utilized in preliminary coin offerings (ICOs), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These are all constructed up around the Ethereum infrastructure and secured by nodes on the Ethereum community.
Who Invented Blockchain?
Blockchain technology was first outlined in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, two mathematicians who wanted to implement a system the place document timestamps could not be tampered with. In the late Nineties, Cypherpunk Nick Szabo proposed utilizing a blockchain to safe a digital funds system, often known as bit gold (which was by no means implemented).
The Bottom Line
With many sensible applications for the technology already being applied and explored, blockchain is finally making a reputation for itself in no small half due to bitcoin and cryptocurrency. As a buzzword on the tongue of each investor in the nation, blockchain stands to make enterprise and government operations extra correct, efficient, safe, and cheap, with fewer middlemen.
As we prepare to go into the third decade of blockchain, it’s now not a query of if legacy firms will catch on to the technology—it’s a query of when. Today, we see a proliferation of NFTs and the tokenization of belongings. The subsequent decades will prove to be an important period of progress for blockchain.
