Course: Data Science & Big Data Analytics This week’s discussion centers around the concept of Blockchain. There is still much confusion regarding what Blockchain is and what it is not. Please
Substantive replies for the below posts: Post 1: 11 hours ago Venkat Week 9 Discussion COLLAPSE Top of Form The Blockchain Technology With the introduction of blockchain technology, digital currencies ushers in a new age for the global financial system where its effects can be felt with the use of cryptocurrency. Blockchain attracts a lot of interest from businesses, investors, and researchers because of its ongoing growth and the increasing number of implementations. The use of cryptocurrency is one of the most important benefits of blockchain, especially in financial systems. Despite the risks associated with cryptocurrency, it has drawn billions of dollars in investment, owing to its permanent transparency, traceability, low transaction costs, pseudo-anonymity transactions, and high-profitable profiles (Hassani et al., 2018). Nevertheless, there are some fundamental misunderstandings about blockchain that date back to its inception, such as the assumption that “blockchain equals bitcoin” and that a true blockchain application must be public, and an anonymous network that drives cryptocurrency value (Rahim et al., 2020). However, people fail to know that bitcoin is just one of a thousand applications of blockchain technology. And then there’s the notion that a network must be completely public. There is a very large difference between galvanizing blockchain into public or private, and generally confusing conversations about authorized networks. Blockchain is a new technology that aims to achieve decentralization, real-time peer-to-peer operation, anonymity, transparency, irreversibility, and integrity in a widely applicable way.  Furthermore, blockchain, and in this case cryptocurrency, utilizes decentralized power, enabling buyers and sellers to conduct business directly or as peer-to-peer transactions. Traders remain anonymous, ensuring full anonymity, and records are immutable. It is also applicable internationally, effective, and is concern-free for double-spending (Narman & Uulu, 2020). This has made blockchain, particularly cryptocurrency very popular in the world as well as in blockchain technology. Today, so many companies have invested in crypto technology, particularly in Bitcoins and Ethereum. Besides, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins and Ethereum have been added as payment methods and this enhanced the popularity of blockchain technology. References Hassani, H., Huang, X., & Silva, E. (2018). Big-crypto: Big data, blockchain, and cryptocurrency. Big Data and Cognitive Computing, 2(4), 34. https://doi.org/10.3390/bdcc2040034 Narman, H. S., & Uulu, A. D. (2020). Impacts of positive and negative comments of social media users to cryptocurrency. 2020 International Conference on Computing, Networking, and Communications (ICNC). https://doi.org/10.1109/icnc47757.2020.9049693 Rahim, R., Patan, R., Manikandan, R., & Kumar, S. R. (2020). Introduction to blockchain and big data. Blockchain, Big Data, and Machine Learning, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429352546-1 Bottom of Form Post 2: Vikas Week 9 Discussion COLLAPSE Top of Form Introduction New technologies have a history of being explored and adopted by businesses, governments, and other organizations that carefully aim them at trajectories serving their long-term economic goals and values (Hughes et al., 2019). Blockchain, in this respect, is no different from earlier technologies, as it is a new frontier for exploration by anyone with a motivation to do so. From this perspective, the goals and needs of enterprise organizations are increasingly important to understand: these large and powerful companies see the value of blockchain differently than other industry actors and continue to invest in the technology on a massive scale. Based on their goals, the size of their userbases, and the types of data they collect, enterprise organizations may be uniquely positioned to disrupt certain industries and achieve sweeping impacts across industries and markets, for better or worse. What is Blockchain The blockchain is a simple yet ingenious way of passing information from A to B in a fully automated and safe manner (Víctor, 2018). One party to a transaction initiates the process by creating a block. This block is verified by thousands, perhaps millions of computers distributed around the net. The verified block is added to a chain, which is stored across the net, creating not just a unique record, but a unique record with a unique history. Falsifying a single record would mean falsifying the entire chain in millions of instances. How enterprise blockchain enriches the definition of blockchain. Because, today, no business operates in isolation. It should not be a stretch to think that multiple institutions could achieve more together then any single institution can alone. By implementing business processes that leverage the collective knowledge of the group, processes can be orders of magnitude more cost efficient. And even more interesting, new processes can be created that were not possible before which open up new opportunity. For example, the US Food and Drug Administration recently added food labeling regulations involving a requirement to notify the public of “Sugar added” to food. How would a company, say producing Protein Bars, know for sure that the ingredients they are using contain sugar… and more importantly, prove it, if they are challenged (Gale, 2018). Operating on a trusted food blockchain, where ingredient suppliers recorded food information to a blockchain, the Protein Bar Company could easily show the provenance of each ingredient, from farm to “wrapper” to convenience store. Conclusion The present point in blockchain’s story is fascinating: corporations are accelerating their blockchain involvement to push forward their objectives. IBM is perhaps the world’s leading example of a multinational firm investing in blockchain from nearly every possible angle—launching projects and joint ventures, participating in consortiums, developing technology, offering blockchain consulting and cloud services, strategy, and blockchain development work. References Gale, S. F. (2018). Blockchain: The future of HR? Workforce, 97(4), 10. Hughes, A., Park, A. Kietzmann, J., & Archer-Brown, C. (2019). Beyond Bitcoin: What Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies mean for firms. Business Horizons, 62, 273-281. Víctor, S. (2018). “Blockchain and Smart Contracts for Insurance: Is the Technology Mature Enough?”. Future Internet. 10 (2): 20. Bottom of Form