Blockchain : how to choose the right tech for your business
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Here we are, everyone around you is talking about blockchain and crypto-currencies. You have read some good papers to learn the concepts, maybe you went to some meetups to see a demo and some use cases. Now you want to start your decentralized blockchain project, the concepts convinced you in terms of transaction tracking and security. But there are some things you need to know before you start.
1-There are many blockchain technologies
Sometimes they are called decentralized registers, sometimes blockchain. Sometimes it’s not really decentralized because the nodes are controlled by a single entity, and sometimes the block chain is replaced by another innovative structure. Currently, there are about 1,500 cryptocurrencies and this figure is growing day by day. They can be classified in different categories :
Coin-oriented blockchains
These crypto-currencies are intended to allow money transfers very quickly anywhere in the world in a decentralized system (nobody controls this system).
Examples
Bitcoin
The first blockchain, Proof of work, No smart contracts
Who has not heard of Bitcoin? This blockchain is now well known around the world. It mainly serves as money for large transactions because of its high transaction costs as well as investment asset thanks to the prodigious rise of its value. However, it can not be used easily for anything other than a means of payment.
Litecoin
Blockchain, Proof of work, No smart contracts
Litecoin was created shortly after bitcoin by a former Google employee, Charlie Lee. It is also a chain based on the POW, but the algorithm is different. Its difficulty makes it possible to create blocks more quickly (2mn 30s), and their size is more important.
Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Fork, POW
Cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin currency. Bitcoin Cash was created to increase the capacity of the chain in order to support the growth of the number of users. This required a hard fork of the Bitcoin protocol that took…