Blockchain can be divided into public (owned) chain, private (owned) chain and alliance chain according to its degree of openness. The so-called openness refers to whether everyone can freely join the blockchain, obtain information on the chain, and the chain. Is the information on the website open and transparent?
Public chain, private chain, alliance chain
①Public chain. It is the most open type of blockchain in practical applications. There are no rigid requirements for participation rights in the public chain, and any individual or organization can join and exit freely. All data records on the public chain are open and transparent, and anyone can participate in the consensus process. The public chain is considered to be a completely decentralized blockchain that is not controlled by institutions. The most typical representative of the public chain is the Bitcoin system. This The system is open to everyone, and everyone can become a node, verifier, and user in the Bitcoin system. The information in the Bitcoin system is completely open and transparent.
②Private chain. Also known as the internal chain, its degree of openness is very low. The permission to write and modify data is only in the hands of a few people/organizations. It belongs to a single-center network of private institutions. Currently, many large corporate groups are developing their own private chains, which can be used for corporate management, financial auditing, bank clearing and settlement, etc.
③ Alliance chain. It is participated by multiple mutually trusting organizations and has a good cooperative relationship with each other. The degree of openness of the alliance chain is between the public chain and the private chain. Writing and modification permissions are still in the hands of multiple mutual trust organizations, and it is regarded as a partially decentralized blockchain. This alliance can be between countries, or it can be some kind of alliance between enterprises, banks and banks. Participants in the alliance chain have a high degree of trust in each other, fast verification efficiency, greatly reduced transaction costs compared with the public chain, and at the same time, part of the privacy of the data can be well protected. The information and resources on the alliance chain can only be shared by members of the alliance. The more well-known alliance chains such as R3 Blockchain Alliance.
What is Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer (P2P) form of decentralized cryptocurrency, and peer-to-peer transmission means a decentralized payment system. The concept of Bitcoin was first proposed by a person named Satoshi Nakamoto on October 31, 2008. On January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the world's first batch of Bitcoins using a personal computer. Officially announced the birth of Bitcoin.
What is special about Bitcoin is that it is a peer-to-peer, decentralized, globally applicable, non-exclusive cryptocurrency that is based on blockchain as payment technology. Bitcoin does not rely on the issuance of any institution or individual, but is generated through a large amount of calculation through the workload proof mechanism, which is commonly known as "mining".
The use of Bitcoin requires a distributed database composed of many nodes throughout the peer-to-peer network to confirm, verify and record all transactions. The total amount of Bitcoin is limited, only 21 million. Currently, more than 18.69 million Bitcoins have been mined. It is expected that all Bitcoins will be mined by 2140.
The relationship between blockchain and Bitcoin
When the financial crisis broke out in full force in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, wanted to design an electronic currency that was not controlled by centralized institutions. When conceiving the underlying infrastructure, he made a very important decision: abandon the traditional center. Based on the database model, a set of strong decentralized underlying mechanisms was designed based on learning from predecessors. Everyone can participate in this mechanism, with equal rights. There is no intervention from a centralized team or organization. Once the data is recorded, it cannot be changed at all. As time went by, people discovered that the advantages of the Bitcoin mechanism became more and more obvious. Even if the founder disappeared, it could still operate stably. So everyone took out this underlying mechanism to study it and named it "Blockchain".
Taken together, the relationship between Bitcoin and blockchain can be discussed in two points. First, blockchain technology is the underlying technology of Bitcoin. Second, Bitcoin is the first application based on blockchain technology and is currently the most successful. an application.