BlockchainToGo

BlockchainToGo is a brand of APILANi GmbH. The aim is making blockchain technology understandable and usable for everyone. Above all, sustainability, economy and meaningfulness are put to the test.

In 1991, Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta laid the foundations for the cryptographically secured concatenation of individual blocks and described them in more detail in the years that followed by Ross J. Anderson, Bruce Schneier and John Kelsey.

In 1998, Nick Szabo also worked on a mechanism for a decentralized digital currency, which he dubbed "Bit Gold".

In 2000, Stefan Konst developed a general theory for cryptographically secured chains and derived various solutions for implementation.

The concept of "blockchain" as a distributed database management system goes back to the person or group of people using the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto" and was first described in a 2008 white paper on "Bitcoin". The following year, "Satoshi Nakamoto" released the first implementation of Bitcoin software, thereby launching the first publicly distributed blockchain.

The "Blockchain" ...

is a distributed database (also known as "Distributed Ledger") in which successive business transactions (transactions) are strung like pearls on a string. If the cord breaks in one place, the entire blockchain is broken. Every business transaction has two or more participants (actors). A new link in the chain always arises when two or more actors have to agree on a business transaction. They do this according to a pre-established consensus mechanism. Whether a new business transaction is actually inserted into the blockchain is determined by the verification of the consensus mechanism, which we will come to in the following.

Not only the content of a transaction, but above all the order of successive transactions is essential and must be clearly recorded and cannot be changed afterwards. This is the only way to protect the blockchain from misuse. A blockchain, for example, would be completely useless if it allowed the booking of transaction-2 (sale of the shares) before booking of transaction-1 (purchase of the shares) when trading stocks. So I could sell stocks that I don't even own. The consequence would be chaos of unspeakable proportions.

Therefore, all parties involved in a business transaction must work together to ensure both data integrity and the correct sequence of postings.

Why is the booking order so important?

Take stock trading:

If the order of the booking is irrelevant, it would be possible that the associated blockchain allows me to execute a transaction TC-2 (sell the shares) before another transaction TC-1 (buy the shares). So, I could sell stocks that I don't even own. The consequence would be chaos of unspeakable proportions.

Therefore the order of the bookings plays an important role. And that is why all the actors involved in a business transaction must work together to ensure both data integrity and the correct sequence of postings.

Subsequent changes within a block are not possible in blockchain technology (as with a bookkeeping account: here, too, changes can only be made later via a new booking with changed values.

Is this good or bad and what are the consequences? Later ...

Self-determined business transactions

Discussions about the meaning of the blockchain are fueled by the desire to act self-determined. We don't need a supervisory authority telling us when a transaction is correct. We also don't need a bank that earns money with every money transaction and also determines how long the  transfer of the transaction takes. It has to be different in the age of digitization.

If we manage to reach consensus as a community, then we can abolish the "intermediary". Then nobody earns any more from our bilateral business dealings.

The blockchain technology has a liberating effect. The actors involved in a business transaction can finally determine the rules according to which they want to do business. There is no superordinate authority that specifies the rules and therefore has to be involved in the business process in monetary terms.

Get rid of the intermediary

We are used to banks when it comes to conducting monetary transactions. Admittedly, the bank always makes a profit, but it also gives the respective actors a feeling of security through the trust it enjoys (has earned) as an intermediary. Is the bank as an intermediary bad? After all, nobody doubts that a share in my securities account was actually bought and paid for beforehand by me through the bank, since otherwise it wouldn't be in my securities account.

With blockchain technology, security and trust must be worked out again with every transaction - as a price, so to speak, for freedom. Blockchain technology creates trust among strangers. How can you imagine?
Does that mean everything is safe and nobody can manipulate? Everything runs as agreed between the contracting parties. The agreement was made once and subsequently not unilaterally changed.