This means that data is ubiquitous: It can be accessed at anytime and from anywhere, regardless of the user’s device. They subsist “in the cloud”, in the sense that they are hosted in a distributed database - the blockchain in this case - that is shared amongst all users in the network. Users’ data (including personal data) are not stored locally into users’ devices. But some of these challenges haven’t been seen before in the context of traditional P2P networks.Īlthough all blockchain-based applications are based on a decentralized network architecture, most of these applications distinguish themselves from standard P2P applications in at least two ways: Thus, while they enable a whole new set of possibilities, blockchain-based applications also present legal, technical, and social challenges similar to those raised by other P2P applications that came before them, such as BitTorrent, Tor, or Freenet. (I’ve written before here in WIRED Opinion about one example, mesh networks, which can provide an internet-native model for building community and governance). Like many other peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, these platforms all rely on decentralized architectures to build and maintain network applications that are operated by the community for the community. Borrowing from the same ideas (though not using the actual peer-to-peer network bitcoin runs on), a variety of new applications have adapted the bitcoin protocol to fulfill different purposes: Namecoin for distributed domain name management Bitmessage and Twister for asynchronous communication and, more recently, Ethereum (released only a month ago). Yet the actual innovation brought about by bitcoin is not the currency itself but the platform, which is commonly referred to as the “blockchain” - a distributed cryptographic ledger shared amongst all nodes participating in the network, over which every successfully performed transaction is recorded.Īnd the blockchain is not limited to monetary applications. "For many, bitcoin - the distributed, worldwide, decentralized crypto-currency - is all about money … or, as recent events have shown, about who invented it. = on the the Bitcoin protocol (BCP) as distinguished from the Bitcoin currency (BTC)ĭiscussion The Bitcoin Protocol Is More ‘Cloud’ Than ‘P2P’
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