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The down side of blockchain, which is just a high tech name for a digital ledger, is that the ledger grows to enormous size. So onboard memory for storage will be a problem.

I believe the bitcoin ledger is now over 100GB in size.

 

The trick is to keep encryption/security inside the ledger, the rest of data you can actually outsource. Not sure how to explain this in English but it isn't really a big issue.

 

No, the whole point of the blockchain technology is that every single transaction ever is stored on each block for accountability and security. Each new block created contains everything new and all the old stuff. 

Put that into old tech (pen and paper)  perspective:

A bookkeeper keep a paper ledger for transaction. The encryption is perhaps a locked and chain, combination lock or whatever on the outside of the ledger. Every 10 mins or regular interval he starts a new ledger book (block), but the new ledger book contains everything from every books before. But that book is not kept at the book keeper's place for central storage. Each person in the office (node) also has a copy of the ledger and updates their book whenever someone else in the office made and entry. Each person has his own separate lock for their own book. They can give out key to wherever they want to open the lock and look at the book, but the pen that writes the book is under a separate lock (public/private key). So if someone loses their ledger, it's not the end of the world, someone else will have a complete copy of the ledger and business can continue. (decentralization)

It's secure in the sense that not one person can steal the entries, someone else will always made note of the action. But not very efficient. And if there are oddities, the entry will be corrected by the majority answer. So even if someone try to cheat by 'deleting' entry, everyone else won't have that 'delete' entry and the fraud will be caught.

In any case, there are no delete/erase function within the blockchain technology, so EVERY TRANSACTIONS EVER is recorded, network wide. 

Sounds like an ever-growing bandwidth hog if everyone's blockchain writes copies of everyone else's every so oftwen.

Did I screw up the understanding? 

Or, do only the last entries get added every so often across the net?

If so, what if not everybody receives the last entry because of net failures?


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Mike

 

918 Spyder + 991 GT3 RS +Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S + Panamera Turbo +  BMW Z8 + BMW 3.0 CSi + Bentley Arnage T

 

The blockchain is the one that contains every single entry. The blocks itself however only has the current transactions and hashed code of the previous block, linking the 2. So the 'chain' goes all the way back to the original single block. 

A new block is generated approximately every 10 minutes or so right now for bitcoin for example.

All these data are updated across the internet real time to other nodes that's doing transactions, each node has a copy of the whole blockchain so yeah, that's a massive data load on the network. But there is no single point of failure for the blockchain, as if one node is offline, there are many more still online and has the copy. Once that node gets back online, it will check with others to see what it missed. 

A block, however, can be offline, as it only links to the previous block for transactions. Once it gets back online, the 'branch' becomes a permanent fixture of the whole blockchain. 

 


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