I. Decentralization
"Decentralization" is the most important feature of blockchain. Decentralization indicates that data will be stored, updated, maintained, and operated via a "distributed ledger," rather than a "centralized institution's" entire server.
In this way, we may avoid the negative repercussions of the "centralized institution's" failures, as well as solve many of the difficulties we face in real life, such as a centralized server that is down, hacked, or centralized institutions that are unreliable.
Why do we say that the most important feature of blockchain is "decentralization"?
It started with Bitcoin, the first application of blockchain, which was originally designed as a decentralized, peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
It was only after Bitcoin became known that the underlying technology behind it, blockchain, gradually gained attention. Therefore, we can say that decentralization is the fundamental characteristic of blockchain and the ultimate ideal that blockchain aims to achieve.
II. Untamperability
Another important feature of blockchain is "tamper-evident".
The content on the blockchain needs to be recorded on the chain only after complex operations using cryptographic principles, and on the blockchain, the content of the next block will contain the content of the previous block, which makes it very difficult and costly to tamper with the information, and this is the characteristic of "tamper-proof" of the blockchain.
This is the characteristic of "tamper-evident" of blockchain, which means that once the data is written to the blockchain, no one can change the data without permission,
No one can change the data information without permission. This feature is naturally suitable for many fields, such as money supervision in the field of public welfare, efficiency improvement in the field of auditing, copyright protection, medical care, and academic information authentication in the field of education, etc.
III. Traceability
Traceability is also an important feature of blockchain.
As we said before, blockchain is a "block-chain data" structure, which is similar to an interlocking "iron chain". The content of the next ring contains the content of the previous ring, and the information on the chain is interlocked according to the chronological order, which makes any data on the blockchain can be traced back to its origin through the "block-chain data structure", which is the "traceability" of blockchain.
This feature has a wide range of application areas, in addition to the above-mentioned public utilities, auditing, copyright protection, medical care, academic authentication, etc., there is also an important application - the supply chain.
Based on the traceability of blockchain, products are recorded on the blockchain from the moment of initial production, and the subsequent transportation, sales and regulatory information are also
The subsequent transportation, sales and regulatory information will also be recorded on the blockchain. Once a problem occurs, it can be traced backward to see which link went wrong. In this way, the probability of fake vaccines and tainted milk powder incidents will be greatly reduced.
IV. Openness
Blockchain has both openness and anonymity. Openness and anonymity may seem to be an oxymoron, but we say that the advancement of blockchain lies in its ability to satisfy both openness and anonymity of data. The openness and anonymity of blockchain actually originate from its fundamental characteristic - decentralization.
Let's start with openness.
Because blockchain is decentralized, all network nodes can participate in the maintenance of data records, (with the exception of alliance chains and private chains), therefore, its data must be open. Only when it is open can we ensure that all people can participate in it, and only then can we guarantee the security of data so that others cannot tamper with it in broad daylight.
With the development of blockchain technology, after the Bitcoin system, Ether has emerged. This blockchain, Ether, is a bit more advanced than Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin, which has a pre-set transaction system operation, Ether is an open source, programmable blockchain. Generally speaking, the Ether system is equivalent to building a relatively complete set of "underlying architecture", similar to Android and Apple, and application developers can develop software on this system.
Therefore, the Ether system can also be regarded as the openness of blockchain, and this "openness" is also the upgraded version.
Therefore, we say that blockchain is a very promising technology, and as long as we can fully discover and exploit its openness, it can be fully applied to many applications beyond the limitations of Bitcoin, which is a single, digital currency service.
V. Anonymity
The main role of openness is to protect the safety and security of data. However, in addition to the security of data, we also need to ensure the rights and interests of the nodes on the chain, that is, to protect the privacy of their transactions, and not to let all the nodes on the network see how much money your family has in the big open ledger.
So the blockchain uses cryptography to ensure the security of private information under the premise of complete data disclosure, which is called "anonymity". (We talk about hashing, asymmetric encryption, private keys, public keys, which are the so-called cryptographic methods in the chapter of Bitcoin)
The "anonymity" of blockchain was first popular in the "dark web", but the "anonymity" of blockchain is not only applicable to the dark web.
In real life, blockchain's "anonymity" can play a big role in protecting personal privacy, the most typical is online shopping.
Based on the anonymity of blockchain, the seller knows your address but not who you are, which protects our personal privacy.
VI. Democracy
The "decentralized" nature of blockchain determines that there is no "centralized" authority in the world of blockchain, which makes blockchain highly democratic.
The democracy of blockchain is reflected in the fact that blockchain adopts a consensus mechanism, i.e. "consensus mechanism", which enables all nodes in the system to store and update data freely and securely based on the voting and trust of the nodes.
Voting, trust, and negotiation are all part of the "democracy" category. From this perspective, the "democracy" of blockchain is expected to break the existing production relationship: in the ecosystem of blockchain, the power of maintaining the system is widely distributed to the nodes, and all nodes are equal, and based on the consensus and trust generated by voting, they can play their roles in the system and make contributions to the system to get rewards.