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This article mainly introduces the relevant knowledge of the three stages and four classifications of the blockchain. The content is detailed and easy to understand, the operation is simple and fast, and has a certain reference value. I believe you will gain something after reading the three stages and four classifications of this blockchain. Let's take a look.

Three stages of block chain

With regard to the three stages of blockchain, some concepts are obtained in the book "blockchain decryption: building the next Generation Internet based on Credit":

Blockchain 1.0: programmable currency

Blockchain technology came into being with the emergence of Bitcoin, and its initial application was completely concentrated on digital currency. The emergence of Bitcoin brought blockchain into public view for the first time, and then produced "copycat" digital currencies such as Lettercoin, Ethernet coin and dog coin. The emergence of programmable currency makes it possible for value to flow directly through the Internet. Blockchain constitutes a new, decentralized digital payment system, which is fascinated by currency transactions anytime, anywhere, cross-border payment without obstacles, and low-cost operation. The emergence of such a new digital currency has had a strong impact on the financial system of the ship.

Blockchain 2.0: programmable Finance

Under the influence of digital currency, people begin to extend the application of blockchain technology to other financial fields. Based on the programmable characteristics of blockchain technology, people try to add the concept of "intelligent contract" to the blockchain to form programmable finance. With the support of the contract system, the scope of application of the blockchain begins to expand from a single currency to other financial areas involving contractual functions. The emergence of new concepts such as color coin, Bitcoin, Ethernet place and contract coin has enabled blockchain technology to emerge in many financial fields, including stocks, clearing, private equity and so on. At present, many financial institutions have begun to study blockchain technology, and try to apply it to reality, the existing traditional financial system is being subverted.

Blockchain 3.0: programmable Society

With the further development of blockchain technology, its "decentralization" function and "data anti-counterfeiting" function have been paid more and more attention in other fields. People begin to realize that the application of blockchain may not only be limited to the financial field, but also can be extended to any field where there is a need. Therefore, outside the financial field, blockchain technology has been applied to notarization, arbitration, audit, domain name, logistics, medical care, e-mail, authentication, voting and other fields, and the scope of application has been extended to the whole society. In this application stage, people try to use blockchain to subvert the lowest protocol of the Internet, and try to apply blockchain technology to the Internet of things, so that the whole society can enter the era of intelligent Internet and form a programmable society.

Four classifications of block chains

1. According to the scope of the network

According to the scope of the network, it can be divided into public chain, private chain and alliance chain.

(1) Public chain

The so-called public ownership is completely open to the outside world, anyone can use it at will, there is no permission setting, there is no identity authentication and so on, not only can participate in the use, but also all the data can be viewed freely, completely open and transparent.

Bitcoin is a public chain network system, when you use the Bitcoin system, you only need to download the corresponding software client, create wallet address, transfer transaction, mining and other operations, these functions are free to use.

Because there is no third-party management, the public chain system relies on a set of pre-agreed rules to ensure that each participant can initiate reliable transactions in a distrustful network environment. Generally speaking, any system that requires public participation and maximum transparency of data is applicable to the public chain, such as digital currency system, crowdfunding system, financial trading system and so on.

It should be noted that in the public chain environment, the number of nodes is not fixed, whether the node is online or not can not be controlled, even whether the node is a malicious node or not can not be guaranteed. When we explained the general workflow of blockchain, we mentioned a question, in this case, how do we know that the data is written and confirmed by most nodes? In fact, in the public chain environment, there is no good solution to this problem. At present, the most appropriate way is to keep synchronizing with each other. In the end, the chain formed by the consistent block data of most nodes in the network is the recognized main chain, which is also known as the ultimate consistency.

(2) Private chain

Private chain is a concept relative to public chain, the so-called private refers to the system that is not open to the outside world, but only used within the organization, such as enterprise bill management, accounting audit, supply chain management, or some government management systems. In the process of using the private chain, there are usually registration requirements, that is, the need to submit identity authentication, and has a set of rights management system. Some friends may wonder that Bitcoin, Ethernet Square and other systems are all public chain systems, but if these systems are built in a local area network that is not connected to the external network, won't this become a private chain? From the perspective of the scope of network dissemination, it can be counted, because as long as the network has been isolated from the external network, it can only be used by itself, but because the system itself does not have any identity authentication and permission settings, from a technical point of view, this situation can only be regarded as a private test network built by clients of the public chain system, such as ethernet can be used to build a private chain environment. Usually this situation can be used to test public chain systems, of course, it can also be applied to enterprise applications.

In the private chain environment, the number of nodes and the state of the nodes are usually controllable, so it is generally not necessary to screen the packers of block data through competition in the private chain environment, and more energy-saving and environmentally friendly methods can be adopted, such as PoS (Proof of Stake), DPoS (Delegate Proof of Stake) and PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance) mentioned in the introduction of the above consensus mechanism. Practical Byzantine fault-tolerant algorithm, etc.

(3) Alliance chain

The network scope of the alliance chain is between the public chain and the private chain, and it is usually used in the environment of multiple member roles, such as payment and settlement between banks, logistics between enterprises, and so on. in these scenarios, members with different permissions are often involved. like the private chain, the alliance chain system generally has identity authentication and authority settings, and the number of nodes is often determined. It is suitable for transactions between enterprises or organizations. Alliance chain does not have to be completely controlled, such as the government system, some data can be made public, it can be partially opened up.

Because alliance chains are generally used between clear institutions, like private chains, the number and state of nodes are controllable, and a consensus mechanism that is more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly is usually adopted.

two。 Based on the deployment environment

(1) main chain

The so-called main chain, that is, the real blockchain system deployed in the production environment, the software will go through many internal test versions before the official release, to find some possible Bug, and used for internal demonstration to view the results, until the final release. The main chain, which can also be said to be a block chain network composed of official clients, only the main chain will be really promoted and used, and the design of various functions is relatively perfect. In addition, sometimes, the block chain system will lead to bifurcations due to various reasons, such as small bifurcations temporarily produced during mining, and the longest original chain is called the main chain.

(2) Test chain

This is easy to understand, that is, the testing blockchain network provided by developers to facilitate learning and use, such as bitcoin test chain, Ethernet square test chain and so on. Of course, it doesn't have to be a blockchain developer to provide a test chain, and users can build their own test network. There can be some differences between the functional design in the test chain and the main chain in the production environment, for example, the workload proof algorithm is used for mining in the main chain, and the algorithm can be changed in the test chain for more convenient testing.

3. According to the docking type

(1) single chain

Block chain systems that can run independently can be called "single chain", such as bitcoin main chain and test chain; ethernet main chain and test chain; Lettercoin main chain and test chain; alliance chain built by Fabric in the super ledger project, etc. These blockchain systems have complete component modules and form a system of their own. Please note that for some software systems, such as crowdfunding system based on Ethernet Square or financial guarantee system, these can only be regarded as intelligent contract applications, not an independent blockchain system. The operation of the application needs the support of an independent blockchain system.

(2) side chain

Side chain is a cross-chain technology of block chain system, which is mainly initiated by bitcoin side chain. With the development of technology, in addition to Bitcoin, there are more and more blockchain systems, each of which has its own advantages. How to combine different chains to open the isolated island of information and complement each other? Side chain is one of the technologies.

In the case of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin system is mainly designed to implement digital cryptocurrency, and the business logic is solidified, so it is not suitable for other functions, such as financial smart contracts, micro-fast payments and so on. However, Bitcoin is the largest public blockchain system in use at present, and it has considerable advantages in reliability and decentralization guarantee, so how to use the advantages of Bitcoin network to run other blockchain systems? We can consider building a new blockchain system on top of the existing Bitcoin blockchain, which can have many functions that Bitcoin does not have, such as private transactions, fast payment, smart contracts, signature coverage, etc., and can interoperate with the main blockchain of Bitcoin. to put it simply, the side chain is a new blockchain based on anchored Bitcoin. Anchoring the side chain of bitcoin, there are ConsenSys's BTCRelay, Rootstock and BlockStream element chains and so on. We should note that the side chain itself is a block chain system, and the side chain does not have to use Bitcoin as the reference chain, which is a general technical concept. For example, Taifang can be used as a reference chain for other chains. It can also be used as a side chain to anchor with other chains. In fact, putting aside the concepts of chain and network is that different software provide interfaces to each other to enhance the functional complementarity between software. let's take a look at the schematic diagram of the side chain:

Through this simple diagram, we can see that both the block chain system and the side chain system are independent chain systems, and the data interaction between them can be carried out according to certain protocols. In this way, the side chain can play a role in expanding the function of the main chain, and many functions that are not convenient to implement in the main chain can be realized in the side chain, while the side chain enhances its reliability by interacting with the data of the main chain.

(3) interconnection chain

Nowadays, it can be said that our life is almost inseparable from the Internet, and the energy brought by only interconnection is already so huge.

The same is true of blockchain, at present, a variety of blockchain systems continue to emerge, some only achieve digital currency, some achieve intelligent contracts, some achieve financial trading platform, some are public chain, some are alliance chain, and so on. So many chains, colorful, different functions, thinking is greatly inspired, constantly refreshing a more innovative application of the game. So, what kind of chemical reactions will take place if these chain systems can interconnect with each other? Different from traditional software, blockchain applications have unique properties, such as data unusurability, integrity proof, automatic network consensus, intelligent contracts, etc., from the initial digital currency to the possible future blockchain programmable society, these will not only change the way of life and services, but also promote the change of social governance structure, if each chain is a nerve, once interconnected Just like the nervous system, it will bring a newer level of intelligence to our social development.

In addition, from a technical point of view, the interconnection between blockchain systems can complement each other, and each type of system will have advantages and disadvantages, complement each other in function, and even verify each other, which can greatly enhance the reliability and performance of the system.

4. By scope of application

According to the scope of application: basic chain, industry chain. There is a saying that currency is about consensus and chain is about ecology. In the division of block chain, according to the scope of ecological application, it can be divided into the following two types:

(1) basic chain

Typical cases: ETH, EOS

Features: the so-called basic chain, understood in a few meters, is to provide a variety of low-level and common development protocols and tools, making it convenient for developers to quickly develop a variety of DAPP block chains, generally dominated by public chains.

If we take reality as an analogy, we often say that the basic chain is the operating system. Strictly speaking, this may not be accurate, and the positioning of different underlying chains may be different. For example, ETH and EOS may be more like operating systems, while ontology and NULS may be like custom protocols.

(2) Industry chain

Typical cases: BTM, GXS, SEER

Features: the so-called industry chain, the industry does not seem to have a unified definition, Jimmy feels that in the underlying technology is not as good as the basic chain, and specially customized for some industries of the basic protocols and tools. If you turn the basic chain into a universal common chain, you can understand the industry chain as a specific common chain.

The industry chain is similar to some industry standards in our daily life, such as BTM is the asset common chain, GXS is the data common chain, and SEER is the predictive common chain.

When dividing by scope of application, there should be a third category: application chain. But I always feel that the application chain should be called DAPP directly, and it can't be compared with the chain.

This is the end of the article on "what are the three stages and four categories of blockchain". Thank you for reading! I believe you all have a certain understanding of the knowledge of "what are the three stages and four classifications of the blockchain". If you want to learn more, you are welcome to follow the industry information channel.

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