10 May 2024
Understanding The Analogy Between Blockchain And Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia - a platform that is free to use while it is created and maintained by the volunteers across the world. It is hosted by an american non profit organization - Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia has information on almost every subject one could think of!
One such topic is blockchain technology - it is a platform that is decentralized, distributed and an open-source public ledger. Blockchain is a complex technology for many to comprehend at the first go.
In this blog, we are going to help you understand the analogy between Blockchain and Wikipedia:
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that works on a collaborative effort of the volunteer that creates and edits the information. Even though it is hosted by an entity making it centralized; it would also be fair to say that wikipedia works in a decentralized manner. The platform enables people to voluntarily add information making the platform open and public.
Blockchain and wikipedia are two different concepts but it's pretty much similar to its attribute - both are decentralized, open and public.
Also Read, 5 Finest Bitcoin Blockchain Explorers
The other attributes similar between Blockchain and Wikipedia are:
- Encyclopedia’s information is relied on by scholars while Wikipedia entrusts this role to people. Similarly, cryptocurrency relies on the public rather than intermediaries.
- In the wikipedia network, if there is any change to be made in the article, the contributors through consensus accept the edit and if not then an appointed authority states its decision. Similarly, in the bitcoin network, miners reach consensus to add a block to the blockchain by means of verifying the transaction.
- Every contribution made in wikipedia is transparent and open to everyone along with its history data and timestamp. Similarly, all the transactions ever made on blockchain are timestamped.
- Wikipedia as well as Blockchain does not consist of the need of a central authority.
The differences:
- Unlike the Bitcoin network, wikipedians are not compensated for their contribution to the network.
- Any information fed in wikipedia can be changed, tampered, edited and altered with by the other fellow volunteer members while apparently in blockchain no added block can be changed, tampered, edited and altered with. The data feed in the block is permanent unlike wikipedia.
- Also encryption in wikipedia is redundant since there isn't ownership and anonymity while blockchain facilitates encryption so that there is not any theft, duplication and double spending.
Wikipedia and Blockchain Technology has been in the industry for over a decade now and its exposure keeps growing either be it with similarities or differences.