Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the course.
In the last lecture we discussed about the blockchain supported architecture tools.
We went through some of the important and critical concepts which are helping in creating the blockchain
architecture and ecosystem.
We learned about Blockchain Lightning Network and Coco Framework.
In this lecture, we are going to discuss about some of the major blockchain platforms which are available
in the market, and we are going to learn some of the key components related to those platforms.
Let's start with the Pioneer Project Bitcoin, which started the whole blockchain phenomenon.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and digital payment system which is globally known.
It was first launched in 2009 as an open source platform by an anonymous person known as Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin is a peer to peer system where the transactions take place directly between the users without
any need for a middleman or a trusted third party.
The nodes or the computers which are part of the network, verify the transactions and records them
in a public distributed ledger which is known as blockchain.
Bitcoin is a major currency and in the year 2017, the price of Bitcoin almost reached 20,000 USD.
Bitcoin provides us with the solution where we can directly use the public blockchain to send the transaction
or if required, we can also create private Bitcoin blockchain to serve our needs.
Bitcoin works on the proof of work algorithm.
The complexity of proof of work algorithm has increased tenfold in recent times.
That's why the transaction process is slow over the Bitcoin public chain.
Bitcoin provides a throughput of about 7 to 10 transactions per second.
Let's see some more features of Bitcoin and how it is different from fiat currency.
The first feature differentiating Bitcoin is the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcoin is not controlled by anybody.
The nodes or the computers connected inside the network make sure that the data is protected from any
modification by anyone.
The setup process of our Bitcoin blockchain is relatively much more comfortable than the traditional
technologies regular banks make.
You go through a lot of procedures to open an account, but with Bitcoin blockchain, the configuration
process is free and straightforward.
Even if you wish to set up a node, you only need to run the daemon tools which are provided as binaries
over your computer and get started with the Bitcoin blockchain.
The third important feature is the anonymity and transparent usage.
Users who are working with Bitcoin are granted complete transparency for all the transactions and procedures
happening throughout the system.
People over the Bitcoin blockchain won't be able to see the identity of the participants at all.
However, they can look at the addresses and the digital signatures of the people over the blockchain.
There is no linking between the addresses and the person using the address.
That's the same case as one in which we can see the transactions done by Satoshi Nakamoto but still
never been able to identify him.
Every transaction in Bitcoin is recorded onto an immutable ledger which is known as blockchain.
The fourth major feature is the meager transaction fees.
Bitcoin charges typically a minimal fee for transactions, which is around five decimal point one BTC
for one kilobyte of data.
This is quite low compared to the other central authorities and traditional services like banks.
However, the price of bitcoin went so high that you might find this fees almost equal to the traditional
services.
But even if you compare them for a more substantial amount of money, the fees is still quite small.
The fifth major feature is the fast network process.
If we use traditional services or fiat currencies, it may take days to transact a large amount, but
with Bitcoin it will take very less amount of time to process the transaction.
Although the current state of Bitcoin will take time to process the transaction as the difficulty has
increased a lot.
If you create a private solution with Bitcoin core under a bank, then the transaction won't take much
of time.
One more feature of bitcoin is that Bitcoin is non-refundable.
Once you send your bitcoins, you won't be able to refund them back.
Bitcoin is the first blockchain which started everything and came up with the concept of blockchain,
which we now know.
Bitcoin Blockchain is like a ledger where we store the immutable transactions.
Other projects soon followed the suit after Bitcoin learning from the mistakes made by Bitcoin and building
on top of Bitcoin limitations.
Now let's discuss the second most famous project for blockchain, which is Ethereum.