Blockchain, blockchain, blockchain. For quite a while now, it has seemed like everything is about blockchain. There are even those who believe that it will form the foundation of the four technologies that are destined to dominate everything in the future. They go by the acronym ABCD: Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cloud and Data. In other words, AI, the cloud and data will all be run on blockchain platforms.

Regardless of whether or not this will come to pass, interest in blockchain technology is undeniable. According to the recent State of the Developer Nation Survey by SlashData, the responses from more than 20,000 professionals spread across 166 countries leaves no room for doubt: the top learning priorities for developers are now related to blockchain applications, cryptocurrency and NFT (Non-fungible tokens), something which we looked at in our previous post.

But what is it that makes blockchain so special? Amongst other things, it is able to give confidence to any digital value exchange between strangers, records are completely unchangeable, and the network is practically unbreakable.

At this stage in its develop, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was obvious. So what else is there? This is where the “magic” comes in, although we use the term sparingly because experts tend to shun it: it is not magic but pure mathematics. The “trick” that allows blockchain to bring together all these characteristics is found in its validation processes, which in the end lead to “consensus”. These are the checks that mean that anything validated by a blockchain network cannot be questioned.

The oldest and most successful consensus of this type forms the very foundation of the most widely known blockchain network: Bitcoin. This is the Proof of Work (PoW) that requires a great deal of computing resources from the validation nodes or miners. To avoid this high consumption of resources, alternatives like Proof of Stake (PoS) have emerged, which will be imminently introduced to Ethereum, leading to the birth of Ethereum 2.0.

Here at GDS Modellica, we wanted to cover five of the most important consensuses for blockchain, including PoW and PoS, and we bring them to you in the form of an infographic.

This is what blockchain is all about.