What is blockchain ? Do you have this question in mind ? This is a buzzword in industry today and lot of people are interested to know about this as this is said to be a disruptive technology. So in this post let us try to understand in a simple way what block chain is and how it can be helpful. Whether it is something which is going to be a future in IT industry and it is another technology which will come and go.
Though the block chain is considered to be a new technology, it is based on a concept which exists from long. The aim of this post is not to give you a training in block chain, but to introduce you to the world of block chain and give you some resources which you can use to learn and move forward in block chain technology if you wish to.
How did block chain originate?
Have you heard of Cryptocurrency? You must have in today world this is a very much possibility that people and specially in IT industry should have heard about this term – BITCOIN. What is a BITCOIN ? it is a digital currency . BITCOIN was launched in 2009 and the idea about BITCOIN was proposed by a person called as “Satoshi Nakamoto” in a whitepaper. Now no one know who is this person, but his idea kicked off and BITCOIN was launched in 2009.
BITCOIN was all digital, stored in users wallets online and was cryptographically secured. Users use to transact with each other using bitcoin. BITCOIN was not approved by any banks or government, but this concept generated a huge interest and many companies jumped into digital currency space with many of them opening a crypto exchange.
Though BITCOIN is not that popular any more because it has lot of challenges, the technology behind BITCOIN looked promising.
The most important feature of BITOCOIN which is impressive is
- Decentralized transactions
- Distributed Ledger
- Cryptographically secured transactions
- Immutable transactions
The term coined was Distributed Letter Technology and this looked really promising.
Now all these transactions were clubbed in blocks, it became a chain of blocks and hence BLOCK CHAIN.
So you can say that BITOCOIN was probably the first real implementation of Block Chain
New term DLT ! So what is Distributed Ledger Technology?
So we say that these transactions are decentralized. So that means there is no central authority controlling these transactions. So how do we create trust in the participating parties of he transaction and how to guarantee that no one tampers with the transactions.
This is where the details of Distributed Ledger technology comes in. Every person participating in the blockchain network has his own copy of Ledger. And there is a technology in place and process in place to make sure that each one have the true and untampered copy of ledger.
So from where the block chain comes in?
Now you know about ledger and is distributed. What is a ledger in real life. It is a book which has input of each and every transaction a business has done.
Same is with this ledger we are talking about here. This ledger has all the transaction done in this network and are clubbed in blocks which are linked to each other and hence this is called as block chain.
So this was a very very basic info about block chain. Now let us look into some thing which will interest you as an IT professional.
What are some existing block chain technology and platforms.
Ethereum
Vitalk Buterin founded it in the year 2014. Ethereum is one of the highly active and open source Blockchain which also forms the base for development of other applications. It has the concept of DAPPS. It is one of the popular ones now.
Hyperledger Fabric
It is part of Linux foundation and has become one of the most popular today. Started by IBM, and adopted by Linux Foundation it has more than 150 collaborators working on this technology, Its objective is to boost the use of Blockchain technologies across different industries.
Corda
It is a collaboration of some of the world’s biggest financial institutions that are exploring new uses of Blockchain and integrating it with the system. It has created an open-source DLT platform.
Above three are most popular ones today and if you are interested in learning more about blockchain or looking to create career in this area, you should be learning one of the above for sure. But remember Block Chain is still an evolving technology and would need some time before it really matures and hence by entering this space now, you are ahead of crowd.
How is blockchain Job scenario
As I have mentioned before, block chain is a new technology area and hence the jobs today are not as much as you have for other technologies. But this is an emerging area and jobs are increasing by day.
If you look at linked in, today there are a 1000+ jobs in India and 4 times more in US/Europe. which is not bad and with more companies testing it out and adopting this technology. The jobs are going to increaase.
Block Chain Courses – Learning block chain
If you are an experience professional and just want to learn more on block chain, below are some good ones.
- Block chain course on Coursera.org from University of Buffalo
- Some fundamentals learning on block chain on EDX
There are also courses on udemy and you can check the individual websites for Hyperledger, Ethereum and Corda for documentation and learning.
If you are interested in full time education (online /in campus) you can look at below.
- Post Graduate Certificate in Block Chain Technology from Symbiosis
- From IIIT-B (PG Diploma in Bloc Chain Technology)
- Executive certificate in Block Chain Management from IMT Ghaziabad
- Software development in block chain from IIIT-B
I hope the information I have provided on Block Chain was helpful to you. If you have any quesiton, please write back to me at skumar@indiacareeradvice,com or leave you comments below.
Happy learning!
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Namaste,
very good & good and unique article. thanks for sharing with us. keep up …..