The digital revolution has reshaped the way businesses operate, and B2B e-commerce has emerged as a critical avenue for growth. However, transitioning to B2B e-commerce is challenging, and one significant hurdle is gaining acceptance from your sales team. This...
Insights
Blockchain: What it is and why should you know about it
BlueSky Commerce Blog
Featured
Related Posts
Stand Out from Your Competition
Customer expectations continue to rise. Digital consumers want a faster, more personalized, and effortless "in the moment" experience and won't hesitate to move to your competitor to get what they want. Competition has never been greater - but the ability to stand...
Have Questions?
Get In Touch
BlueSky Commerce
- BlueSky Commerce Partners with commercetools
- KLaunch and BlueSky Commerce Announce FoodBridge, An AI-Powered E-Commerce Solution Created for the Financial Stability of Food Banks
- Catch up with BlueSky Commerce at Shoptalk 2023!
- Industry E-Commerce Sales Veterans Leading the Way at BlueSky
- BlueSky Sponsors Brooke’s Place 2022 Hope Fore Tomorrow Golf Outing June 6, 2022
- BlueSky Commerce announces strategic partnership with Fluent Commerce
- 7 Ways to Modernize Your E-Commerce Site Design
- Creating a Digitally Native Culture: A 360 Approach to Digital Transformation
- How to Take Your B2B Brand Direct-to-Consumer
- BlueSky Commerce Sponsors Brooke’s Place Hope Fore Tomorrow Golf Outing
Follow Us
Blockchain: What it is and why should you know about it
Much of our lives takes place in a digital world.
We buy and sell online, engage in social interactions, take classes, pay bills, and participate in a multitude of other activities. The problem that often arises with situations that rely on the digital information is a diminished trust.
In a constant effort to instill that sense of trust, we often look to neutral third parties to ensure the integrity of a situation. For example, when conducting financial transactions, we look to our banks to keep our money safe. When buying or selling online, we look to services like PayPal to ensure we don’t get duped by the person on the other end. Unfortunately, many users have fallen victim to the lack of security protocols on the web. According to the Pew Research Center, 64 percent of Americans have experienced a major data breach of some sort.
What’s the answer? Many experts are speculating that blockchain technology could help increase cybersecurity and might be the way to securing the trust that we are lacking in the digital realm.
How blockchain technology works
Blockchain technology was originally developed in 1991 as a way to timestamp digital documents and prevent them from being back dated. This prevented tampering or modification of records so that those records could be trusted by users. Although blockchain technology has been around for some time, it didn’t gain a large amount of notoriety until bitcoin. Bitcoin adapted the blockchain technology in 2009 to store information across a network of multiple personal computers, allowing for direct financial transactions without the need for a governing authority. This decentralizes the system by distributing it across numerous computing devices.
No central company, system, or person owns the information stored in the blockchain. Instead, the blockchain is disseminated to every computer that joins the network. This decentralization means that the information is open to everyone and can be verified by anyone; in effect, allowing everyone to use it and help run it. What makes blockchain so unique and important is that no one entity can change the information. This makes it nearly impossible for the system to be taken down or corrupted.
The numerous people who run the system store bundles of information on their computers. These bundles are called blocks. For bitcoin, these blocks are financial transactions; however, the information stored in these blocks can be anything that needs to be kept secure from tampering (such as voting records or personal identification documents). These blocks are stored in a chronological order called a chain. Hence the name, blockchain.
Why the blockchain encourages trust
Trust is an issue with any service we seek or relationship we develop. The blockchain’s sole purpose is to ensure users of the integrity of data and to promote trust using fixed information. The blockchain uses a form of math called Cryptography to ensure that the data in each block cannot be counterfeited or changed by anyone else.
Here’s how it works: Each block is assigned something called a hash. The hash is just a long, independent, random number that is assigned to the block. The hash is like a fingerprint and is unique to that particular block. The block also stores the hash of the block before it in the chain. When a block is modified, the hash changes. So, if a block is modified or removed, the blocks in front of it recognize that the hash numbers don’t match. When there is a mismatch, the chain becomes invalid at that mismatched block. Similar to cutting a single link on a chain, the chain becomes useless after that point. In addition, there is also a proof mechanism that helps verify the blockchain by limiting how quickly a block can be created.
To make blockchain even more secure, all of the users on the network get a full copy. When a block is added, it’s added to everyone’s blockchain. Therefore, everyone’s blockchain remains identical. This synchronization makes a consensus and verifies the legitimacy of the blockchain.
Blockchain and the future
Even though the blockchain technology is currently used primarily for cryptocurrencies, it has other applications that offer exciting possibilities. Blockchain will allow us to better secure our online identities, help track the trillions of devices that are on the internet, allow companies to run without human interactions, and even help make self-driving cars safer.
The possibilities present compelling opportunities for how we interact with the digital world.
Start the Conversation
BlueSky’s unmatched commerce expertise allows us to help our clients understand how to utilize omnichannel and business solutions to reach, attract, engage, and grow customers.
Related Posts
Meet BlueSky Commerce at Envision B2B!
BlueSky Commerce is thrilled to announce that we will be exhibiting at the Envision B2B conference in Chicago! We invite you to join us at this exciting gathering of industry leaders, innovators, and forward-thinking eCommerce professionals, as we shape the future of...
Join your peers for a HCL Commerce User Group in Raleigh!
HCL Commerce User Group & Networking Event It's been a while since we've gotten together! We are all looking forward to the chance to collaborate and discuss the latest exciting HCL Commerce updates. Join us to take a look at the HCL Commerce product roadmap, hear...
Introducing New HCL Commerce Starter Store
BlueSky Commerce and HCL Commerce co-developed "Ruby" You may be hearing some buzz lately about “Ruby” - the new HCL Commerce React-based starter store. Ruby is a production-ready starter storefront, available for HCL Commerce clients, starting in summer 2023. HCL and...