The blockchain is well known for enabling digital currencies. Although cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have the lion’s share of media attention, there is another revolutionary possibility inherent in blockchain technology: secure, decentralized data processing.
Don’t let the dull wording dent your enthusiasm. Newer blockchain systems propose to create a global, distributed Turing machine upon which a whole new layer of interaction and processing could take place on the internet, essentially wresting control of data away from centralized authorities and giving it back to users.
That is the hope and promise. But how do these ambitious projects propose to pull it off?
While blockchain and Bitcoin have their urtext in the Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper, the idea of building higher-order systems atop a blockchain is arguably most clearly set forth in the Ethereum whitepaper. (This whitepaper remains essential reading, despite the preamble noting it is now several years old.) And while Ethereum (and its attendant coin, Ether) may be the most prominent higher-order crypto system, the category also includes Polkadot (a multi-chain system), Cosmos, Algorand, and others.
It’s important to realize that because Ethereum is essentially a compute ecosystem, a wide range of other systems are built on top of it, including coins like Hex and Tether and systems like Uniswap and Amp. Ethereum also appears in a recently filed patent granted to Microsoft.
I’ll refer to the fundamental idea encapsulated by Ethereum and other higher-order crypto systems as a “compute blockchain.”
Continue reading: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3655083/how-blockchain-is-evolving.html
Don’t let the dull wording dent your enthusiasm. Newer blockchain systems propose to create a global, distributed Turing machine upon which a whole new layer of interaction and processing could take place on the internet, essentially wresting control of data away from centralized authorities and giving it back to users.
That is the hope and promise. But how do these ambitious projects propose to pull it off?
While blockchain and Bitcoin have their urtext in the Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper, the idea of building higher-order systems atop a blockchain is arguably most clearly set forth in the Ethereum whitepaper. (This whitepaper remains essential reading, despite the preamble noting it is now several years old.) And while Ethereum (and its attendant coin, Ether) may be the most prominent higher-order crypto system, the category also includes Polkadot (a multi-chain system), Cosmos, Algorand, and others.
It’s important to realize that because Ethereum is essentially a compute ecosystem, a wide range of other systems are built on top of it, including coins like Hex and Tether and systems like Uniswap and Amp. Ethereum also appears in a recently filed patent granted to Microsoft.
I’ll refer to the fundamental idea encapsulated by Ethereum and other higher-order crypto systems as a “compute blockchain.”
Continue reading: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3655083/how-blockchain-is-evolving.html
