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What is blockchain?

Published on March 30, 2023   16 min

A selection of talks on Technology & Operations

Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Welcome to the talk series about blockchain. This technology is bringing a revolution to business and economic relations worldwide. To understand what is behind it, my colleague, Dr. Bernardo and I are going to answer the what is blockchain question. Dr. Bernardo is a professor in Universidade Catolica de Petropolis and I am a PhD student in Cork University Business School.
0:30
We are here to talk to you about the blockchain technology and how this technology is spreading quickly as we better understand its disruptive features, as well as its importance and relevance. We will discuss the main concepts related to the blockchain environment and bring some examples of its applications in the business world. We have to bear in mind that there are tons of new and complex terminologies that we will try to simplify so we can discuss how blockchain can change the way we do business. For those who want to dive deep into this subject, please keep in mind that there are tons of new information on a daily basis, so it's very important to be updated. Do you remember how it was the emergence of the Internet in the last century? How so many changes were imposed through a new way of communicating, transacting, and connecting. With the blockchain, it's the same. A new revolution is coming to this Internet-driven world. Let's go. To start, what is blockchain? Blockchain is often defined as a digital public ledger. But what is so revolutionary about that? The first one we can see is the peer-to-peer configuration. Blockchain, different from other technologies, has a decentralized mode of operation, enabling transactions to operate in a peer-to-peer model. This means that there is a slight configuration in opposition to the hierarchy code displayed in other systems. In this case, transactions can occur between peers with no middlemen required as transactional trust is assured by the blockchain environment given that decentralization. We can conclude that blockchain is a decentralized transactional database. Another particularity of blockchain is that the network is open and public, so the code does not belong to one individual and can be applied to many different realities. Thus, transparency is a trade here that adds to creating trust, but we are going to talk more about it later. Now, what blockchain is not? In fact, given that the Bitcoin is the first thing we recall when talking about blockchain, this technology is not only that. It is not right to suggest that it's applicability is restricted to the financial sector. In this case, blockchain is not a cryptocurrency, but a technology that supports the transactions of the crypto market. Also, blockchain is not a financial or any other type of product, blockchain is considered a network database that supports different types of transactions. However, as everything is connected to the Internet, it is not free of cyber attacks. Like any other technology, human influence is a relevant risk we encounter here. To further explore the myths involved in blockchain, we have to talk more about its emergency.