Necessity breeds invention, this singular fact enabled the rise to prominence of the blockchain as we now know it.
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Following the global economic crisis of 2008, It became apparent to stakeholders (consumers especially) that the paradigm within which financial systems and services operate wouldn’t suffice anymore and a rejig was needed.
These events created the perfect storm for the arrival of a novel asset class, Bitcoin. A cryptographically secured digital asset is immune to double spending and counterparty risks as these were the two factors that brought about the economic crisis of 2008.
The blockchain(The overarching technology responsible for administering control over bitcoin issuance and transfer) provides a secure, immutable transaction ledger, its security is derived from consensus mechanisms (several of them have been developed and several more are being developed even as I write) which require a network of miners to validate on-chain transactions, by leveraging computing power in exchange for block rewards, the result is an immutable global state which offers decentralization that previous iteration of the web has not been able to provide.
Since its inception, the blockchain has soared to new heights far beyond what was intended by its founder, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Thanks to the pioneering work of Vitalik Buterin, The EVM evolved from Bitcoins’ early beginnings into the first true world supercomputer.
The EVM(Ethereum Virtual Machine) is a globally available virtual machine composed of a number of computers(known in the ecosystem as nodes) and acts as a runtime environment for programs in Ethereum (known as smart contracts). Froman operational standpoint, the EVM behaves as a large decentralized computer with millions of objects (represented as accounts) that have the ability to maintain an internal database, execute code, and talk to each other through message passing. This concept is often referred to as the idea of a world computer.
The EVM can run arbitrary computer programs written in the Solidity language(an object-oriented language with strong derivations from Java) or any other EVM-compatible language(vyper, yul, go, rust etc.). These programs, when given a particular input, will always produce output the same way, with the same underlying state changes. This makes programs written in Solidity fully deterministic and guaranteed to execute.
What does it mean for the outcome of EVM to be deterministic? It is of paramount importance for each node on the network to reach the identical final state given the same input for a contact method. Otherwise, nodes executing similar contract code would end up with different results and no consensus would be possible. This is the deterministic nature of EVM that allows every node to reach a consensus on the execution of a contract and the same final state of accounts. The nodes executing a contract are similar to cogs synchronized to move inside of a clock, as they work in a harmonious fashion and reach the matching final State.
There exists a caveat though. When one user uploads a smart contract through their node, it is included in the latest block and propagated around the network, where it is stored on every other node in the network. In order to prevent manipulation of the Ethereum blockchain and hijacking of global computing resources by singular entities, the concept of gas is introduced. Gas costs accompany each transaction and serve as a metering mechanism that restricts computation to reasonable limits, deterring network actors from acting maliciously.
Tracking its progression from inception till date one thing remains obvious the work is far from finished. The previous iteration of the web provided us with centralized sources of data making users passengers and not drivers concerning data they own, what’s worse is singular points of failure provide a black hat hacker with the right tool-set an opportunity to exploit numerous vulnerabilities to cause significant downtime to service and loss of earnings, maybe even worse.
The blockchain, the web’s latest iteration eliminates that with a cryptographically secure, distributed and immutable ledger that registers transaction data on-chain, datastore network participants can hardly corrupt so long as the blockchain is built correctly. Not that it is without its limitations, but these limitations will fade in time as awareness of its powers spreads through society, bringing on a novel and innovative way of interacting with web services.
Thereby changing the world as we know it. This in essence why we all should be fascinated and pay attention to developments in this space, as it promises a world where true digital ownership can be achieved without the need for 3rd party services. Already the impact cuts across various fields from Finance to healthcare, even to arts and collectables, still it promises more offerings not only for the present but for the future also.
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