Advantages and Disadvantages of Blockchain Technology

By taking the time to learn blockchain technology, IT professionals can improve their skills for professional growth, but the benefits must be carefully weighed against the disadvantages.

It’s rare to find a tech event these days that doesn’t talk about blockchain. Supporters of this technology claim that with the help of the blockchain, almost all problems in the world can be solved. Well-known tech companies such as Oracle and Microsoft are participating in blockchain games. At the same time, other experts doubt that blockchain is anything more than a short-term fad. Is it worth spending time learning this technology?

This question cannot be answered unequivocally, but it is possible to reasonably assess the role of blockchain technology for the career of an IT specialist. In this article, I will give several arguments in favor of learning blockchain and list a number of reasons why this study can be a waste of time.

We will focus on the perspectives that are understandable to technical experts, such as how much blockchain actually represents an innovation in technical terms, and not on the economic, political and legal issues associated with the blockchain. There are many publications on these topics in other sources, but it is more difficult to find a deep technical assessment of the prospects and viability of the blockchain.

Also Read: Everything You Need to Know About NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens)

What is blockchain technology?

First of all, I will explain what should be understood by the study of blockchain technology. These are the technical skills required to develop, deploy, or manage applications that interact with the blockchain in some way.

At first, blockchain technology was associated exclusively with cryptocurrency, namely bitcoin, but since the birth of bitcoin ten years ago, it has gone through a gigantic path of development. Blockchain databases are currently being used in attempts to revolutionize everything from record-keeping in healthcare facilities to connecting the Internet of Things. It may even help stop the epidemic of opioid abuse in the United States and Canada.

Indeed, it makes more sense to think of blockchain in a broad sense as a new way of managing data, rather than as a type of financial solution.

Thus, by taking the time to learn about the blockchain and how it works, as well as mastering the logic of programming, such as smart contracts, you can significantly increase your chances of a successful career in various fields.

Check this video to learn what is blockchain in a very simple way

Three Benefits of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is still a relatively new technology. How viable is it in the long run? Here are three reasons to give hope:

• Learning blockchain is easy. It may seem mysterious to the uninitiated, but the technology is actually not very complex. In essence, a blockchain is a regular database with several specific functions, in particular, storage, to which data is only being added, and decentralized management. Therefore, in order to understand blockchain technology, technical specialists do not need to make much effort.
• Thanks to the blockchain, automation is taken to a new level. Smart contracts, which automatically enforce agreements without third-party intervention, allow automation to be increased to a level unattainable for conventional applications. In terms of application development and delivery, smart contracts are indeed a powerful feature that promises long-term successful application of the blockchain in various fields.
• Blockchain provides a high degree of data availability. Its databases are distributed over a large network, so data is highly available from the outset. Assuming the blockchain network is large enough, there is very little chance that all nodes will disappear and your data will be lost. In this, blockchains differ from regular databases, where data can become inaccessible due to the failure of several servers.

Three reasons for the technical imperfection of the blockchain

Pessimists may point to some technical flaws as arguments against learning about blockchain technology, such as:

• Blockchain does not provide privacy: In most cases, blockchain data is not that well protected. It is often possible to trace transactions and link data to specific users, whose identity can sometimes be identified. Additional features, such as ring signatures, will help increase privacy, but the harsh reality is that blockchains are not the magic wand that guarantees data privacy, as some technology advocates have promised.
• Blockchain has scalability issues: The people who designed the first blockchains didn’t think through the task of scaling them well enough. Nowadays, since many use blockchains, such as those associated with Bitcoin, it sometimes takes several hours to complete a transaction. And this problem will only get worse as the size of the blockchain increases. New blockchain architectures have emerged with thoughtful scalability, but the capabilities of most popular blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are not great.
• Blockchain could destroy the planet (and your electricity budget): You may have heard that if current trends continue, by 2020 bitcoin will consume all the electricity produced in the world. Not everyone agrees with these calculations .html), and other blockchains consume less power. Still, the energy costs inherent in using blockchain technology are significant and may hinder the use of blockchain as a data store in the long run.

So, we have listed three reasons why blockchain may have a great future, and three reasons why the technology can be considered technically imperfect and overvalued. What do you think?