{"id":9161,"date":"2018-01-02T08:39:11","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T08:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soltel.es\/?p=2692"},"modified":"2025-08-08T11:57:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T11:57:02","slug":"desmontando-blockchain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.soltel.es\/en\/desmontando-blockchain\/","title":{"rendered":"Deconstructing Blockchain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Born to support the cryptocurrency bitcoin (recently launched in <\/span>bag<\/span><\/a>), Blockchain technology is making a lot of noise lately and promises a faster, simpler, and more secure future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blockchain allows the elimination of centralized supervision and authentication and delegates that work to a distributed network, not only without compromising the security and integrity of the data, but strengthening them.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the words of Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, founders of the Blockchain Research Institute:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBlockchain technology is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not only financial transactions but virtually anything of value.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/h4>\n

What is blockchain?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Exactly what its name indicates: a blockchain. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As in any chain, each block is linked to the previous block and the next block.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"bloques\"<\/p>\n

\"Bloques2\"<\/p>\n

Each block carries the corresponding information (financial transactions in the case of virtual currencies) and a header information, which includes the identifier of the previous block.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does this chain work correctly and safely? <\/span><\/p>\n

Let's look at the characteristics of this technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

Replicated database\u2026 across millions of nodes<\/span><\/h2>\n

The information contained in a blockchain is a shared database, replicated across multiple nodes (computers), which is continuously updated and validated. There is no centralized version of this information that anyone can steal or corrupt. The data is accessible and verifiable to anyone on the internet, or at least within each blockchain network, since there are both public and private blockchain networks.<\/span><\/p>\n

An analogy between blockchain and traditional centralized systems can be drawn with Google Docs\/Sheets and the classic text document or spreadsheet that colleagues email and that can only be edited by one person at a time. This is the same system banks use to manage balances and money transfers and sell airline tickets: access is briefly blocked while a transfer is made, then updated and access is reopened. With Google Docs\/Sheets, all users have access to the same document simultaneously, and the single version of that document is always visible to everyone. In many work scenarios, this way of working with single, shared, and simultaneously editable documents greatly simplifies work and saves a significant amount of time. Obviously, we don't need a blockchain to share documents, but this analogy illustrates the advantages provided by the replicated database of blockchain.<\/span><\/p>\n

A network of nodes\u2026 without a central node<\/span><\/h2>\n

A node is any computer that connects to the blockchain network (network <\/span>P2P<\/span><\/a>) using a client. Upon connecting to the network, a copy of the blockchain is automatically downloaded. <\/span><\/p>\n

The nodes in the network perform two main operations:<\/span><\/p>\n