8 Things We Learned about Blockchain During our Hackathon
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Our team at ArcTouch started the same way we start every year — with an all-hands hackathon. Every year, we get three days of the ultimate freedom for geeks like us — to experiment, build and master the latest technology. This year, we dug into the world of blockchain — exploring all things from blockchain hackathon entries, decentralized apps, Ethereum, ICOs and even building new blockchains from scratch.
Well, in case you spent under a rock and somehow missed the Bitcoin bonanza, many are comparing the rise of blockchain technologies to the beginning of the Internet. It has the potential to completely disrupt how transactions are processed, data is stored, software blockchain hackathon entries architected and implemented, and digital histories are recorded and tracked.
So, many of our teams decided to dive into blockchain during our hackathon, held Jan. And over those three days, we achieved some great results. Here are a few fun facts:. More importantly, here are eight things we learned about blockchain or were reminded of during our hackathon:.
While some consumers have become fixated by the idea of a new kind of currency, there are much broader implications for blockchain technology — and boundless opportunities for businesses to explore it. Blockchain could become the new record of history for the digital universe. Blockchain hackathon entries transaction and action whether involving money or information flow is recorded and cannot be changed.
One of blockchain hackathon entries hackathon teams built a proof-of-concept blockchain solution targeted at aircraft maintenance.
As planes and their specific parts are serviced, a record of that work would be stored on the blockchain, date-stamped and digitally signed by those responsible for the work.
This immutable record could be incredibly valuable as planes are sold — both in commercial and private aviation. And, it could even help prevent catastrophic accidents caused by maintenance process problems.
But by using Microsoft Azure in combination with Ethereum, some of our teams had their own blockchain up and running in less than 20 minutes. The architecture is rather straightforward: Microsoft Azure provides the blockchain hackathon entries and compute power while Ethereum provides the blockchain and smart contract functionality.
By simply deploying a pre-configured Azure blockchain virtual environment, you will have a blockchain hackathon entries transaction node and blockchain hackathon entries mining nodes ready to go.
From there, you can simply launch your genesis block and seed it with some pre-mined ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain. You now have your very own private blockchain. A deployed Microsoft Azure blockchain network topology. A couple of our teams also successfully experimented with the Truffle framework within Azure, a nifty toolset that helps make deploying and testing smart contracts on Ethereum blockchains easier.
The blockchain hackathon entries of decentralized computing via blockchain means that data is processed, verified, and recorded everywhere. As you might imagine, this can create some lengthy transaction processing — you initiate a transaction that needs to be verified by the nodes on that network before the block is added to the blockchain. Miners serve an important role in this speed. With blockchain hackathon entries miners computing systems that perform mathematical functions to verify these transactions or more high-performance miners, the speed of these transactions can be improved.
Remember the old Windows blockchain hackathon entries that would take up your computer screen while you were saving a document or trying to shut down your computer? Well, several of our teams struggled with similar lengthy pauses in their hackathon demos when submitting a transaction to be recorded on their blockchain. One of the primary strengths of the Ethereum blockchain is its focus on high performance smart contract execution.
One such smart contract is a token or altcoin. In a matter of minutes, you can have your own token and begin sharing with friends — or maybe just hoard them all for yourself. Like any new technology, industry leading companies need to explore blockchain in order to fully understand its capabilities — and limitations.
In some use cases, a more traditional and centralized application and database architecture blockchain hackathon entries appropriate. Transaction speeds will be far superior, privacy and access controls can be tightly managed, and complexity can be minimized. At the same time, there are absolutely use cases where blockchain should be thoroughly explored. Take for example a supply chain management use case where multiple blockchain hackathon entries, who may not know, much less trust each other, must all coordinate and collaborate to execute a single transaction for the movement of goods from a supplier to a buyer.
A blockchain with smart contracts can remove much of the friction and streamline the entire process with automatic execution as the contract moves from one stage to the next. Turns out, our sales and marketing staff might have been the most excited coming out of the hackathon because of some of the blockchain blockchain hackathon entries of concepts blockchain hackathon entries built. In particular, several projects focused on user activation and engagement — terms blockchain hackathon entries get marketers attention.
You can do anything with a smart contract. The power is in the automation blockchain hackathon entries execution and the fact that nearly anything can be programmed into the smart contract. Subsequently, it can be recorded on the blockchain after execution. Smart contracts allow two or more parties which may not blockchain hackathon entries each other to operate in a trustless state. In other words, they do not have to trust each other, they pass that responsibility to the smart contract and the blockchain to execute on their behalf.
ArcTouch recently launched BlockFirst, a new blockchain strategy and development service designed to help companies transform blockchain hackathon entries business processes through blockchain hackathon entries decentralized apps and ledger technology. Chris Reichard Jan 31, Our team at ArcTouch started the same way we start every year — with an all-hands hackathon.
Here are a few fun facts:
