Blockchain Intro
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Refer: Youtube-freeCodeCamp.org
Bitcoin#
Bitcoin is the first protocal(协议) to use the technology blockchain. It is a peer-to-peer network that enables peer-to-peer transactions without a central server (decentralized network).
This network is powered by cryptocraphy and allows people to engage in cencership resistant finance in a decentralized manner.
Digital gold Due to some of the features of bitcoin, a lot of people took it to be as a superior store of value over another asset. like let's say gold. And that's why it's commonly referred to as digital gold similar to gold. there is a scarce and set amount of it on the planet and people use it to buy and sell similar to other assets.
Ethereum#
a few years later a man named metallic buterin released a white paper describing a new protocol called Ethereum, which used this same blockchain infrastructure but with an additional feature and in 2015.
him and a number of other co-founders took this blockchain technology and applied it in ways that people can make entirely decentralized applications decentralize organizations and build smart contracts and engage in agreements without a third-party intermediary or centralized governing force their idea was to take the same pieces that made bitcoin great and add smart contracts to it.
Smart Contracts 智能合约#
Smart contracts are similar to regular traditional contracts that people make between each other. But instead of writing these contracts down on pen and paper or typing that on the computer, it's entirely written in code the terms of the agreement are written in code and automatically executed by the decentralized blockchain network instead of being written pen and paper and executed by the two parties or three parties or however many parties involved.
This is one of the main differentiators between the ethereum protocol and the bitcoin protocol. Now technically bitcoin does also have smart contracts however they're not Turing complete meaning that they don't have the full range of capabilities as a turing complete application like ethereum. This is actually an intentional move by the bitcoin developers.
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In computability theory, a system of data-manipulation rules (a computer's instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be Turing-complete or computationally universal if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine(图灵机). Turing completeness is used as a way to express the power of such a data-manipulation rule set. Virtually all programming languages today are Turing-complete.
They view the bitcoin network as an asset whereas ethereum and the ethereum developers viewed that acid as an asset and also a utility for people to build these smart contracts now these smart contracts are revolutionary technologies.
Oracle problem (许可证问题)#
These blockchains are deterministic systems. And this determinism means that they're a walled garden meaning that everything that happens in these smart contracts and on this blockchain happens in this little box.
if you want these smart contracts to actually be these digital superior agreements, then they need some way to interact with the real world and get real data and external outside the blockchain computation. This is where oracles come into play. Oracles are devices that bring data into a blockchain or execute some type of external computation.
Hybrid Smart Contracts#
Combining these on-chain logic settlement layers and these off-chain data and external computation builds what's called hybrid smart contracts. a large majority of DeFi applications in the largest applications today are these hybrid smart contracts.
This is where the protocol chain link comes into play. Chain link is a decentralized modular oracle network that allows you to bring data into your smart contracts and do external computation. And it's these hybrid smart contracts that can have this on-chain settlement and interact with the real world in some meaningful way.
Chain link is an incredibly powerful oracle network because it allows us to get data get randomness do some type of upkeep or customize our smart contracts in any way we want and elevate them to do.
hybrid smart contracts = smart contract with an offchain componant= Decentralized Application
Ethereum is by far the most popular and most used smart contract blockchain or smart contract protocol.
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An IMF staff discussion from 2018 reported that smart contracts based on blockchain technology might reduce moral hazards and optimize the use of contracts in general.
But "no viable smart contract systems have yet emerged." Due to the lack of widespread use their legal status was unclear.
Blockchain Features: Freedom and Trustless#
- decentralized (去中心化)
Blockchains are decentralized meaning there's no centralized source that controls the blockchain.
The individuals that make up blockchain are known as node operators and they are the independent individuals running the software that connects the whole blockchain together.
- transparency and flexibility (透明灵活)
Everything that's done on a blockchain and all the rules that are made can be seen by everyone. There's no backdoor deals there's no shady happenings everything that happens on chain. You can see everything that happens on chain.
Additionally this doesn't mean that everything you do is tracked. the blockchain is pseudo-anonymous. So you can create different accounts and you can interact with it in many different ways.
- Speed and Efficiency (快速效率)
blockchains are verified by a decentralized collective the settlement or withdrawal period in this case is substantially faster.
- Security and Immutability (安全不变)
blockchains are immutable which means they can't be changed. And because of this it means that they can't be tampered with or corrupted in any way shape or form. This allows us to have massive security on our data on our transactions and anything of the like.
As long as one node and the entire system is running the data is safe and secure.
- Removal of counterparty risk (移除对手风险)
- Trust minimized agreements (信任最小化协议)
Giving execution power to the party that doesn't want to execute something has often led to frustration. You can always sue them and go through this process. But now you're wasting all this time going through this long process to get something that you should have originally gotten in the first place. This leads to one of the biggest value adds to smart contracts.
smart contracts allow us to engage in trustless and trust minimized agreements.
smart contracts allow us to move from this brand based agreements to math-based agreements. These math-based agreements we don't even have to trust that they're going to do the right thing, hence the name trustless. One plus one is always going to equal two in a math world. Whatever the code determines is the input output that's exactly what's gonna happen every single time.
DAOs: decentralized autonomous organizations#
Decentralized autonomous organizations are organizations that live online and live in these smart contracts. They're similar to a regular organization in the traditional world, however they have people who maybe hold governance tokens to make voting decisions or they do all their governance on chain, on this decentralized settlement layer, giving us the freedom to engage with each other as we please.