Necessity breeds invention, this singular fact enabled the rise to prominence of the
blockchain as we now know it. Following the global economic crisis of 2008, It became
apparent to stakeholders (consumers especially) that the paradigm within which financial
systems and services operate wouldn’t suffice anymore and a rejig was needed.
These events created the perfect storm for the arrival of a novel asset class, the Bitcoin. A
cryptographically secured digital asset immune to double spending and counterparty risks as
these were the two factors that brought about the economic crisis of 2008. The blockchain
(The overarching technology responsible for administering control over bitcoin issuance and
transfer) provides a secure, immutable transaction ledger, it’s security is derived from
consensus mechanisms (several of them have been developed and several more are being
developed even as I write) which require a network of miners to validate on-chain
transactions, by leveraging computing power in exchange for block rewards, the result is an
immutable global state which offers decentralization that previous iteration of the web have
not been able to provide.
Since it’s inception the blockchain has soared to new heights far beyond what was intended
by its founder, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto . Thanks to the pioneering work of
Vitalik Buterin, The EVM evolved from Bitcoins early beginnings into the first true world
supercomputer. The EVM(Ethereum Virtual Machine) is a globally available virtual machine
composed of a numberof computers(known in the ecosystem as nodes) and acts as a
runtime environment for programs in Ethereum (known as smart contracts). From an
operational standpoint, the EVM behaves as a large decentralized computer with millions of
objects (represented as accounts) that have the ability to maintain an internal database,
execute code, and talk to each other through message passing. This concept is often
referred to as the idea of a world computer.
The EVMcanrunarbitrary computer programs written in the Solidity language(an object
oriented language with strong derivations from Java) or any other EVM compatible
language(vyper, yul, go, rust etc.). These programs, when given a particular input, will always
produce output the same way, with the same underlying state changes. This makes
programs written in Solidity fully deterministic and guaranteed to execute.
Whatdoesit meanfor the outcome of EVM tobe deterministic? It is of paramount
importance for each node on the network to reach the identical final state given the same
input for a contract method. Otherwise, nodes executing similar contract code would end up
with different results and no consensus would be possible. This is the deterministic nature of
EVMthat allows every node to reach consensus on execution of a contract and the same
final state of accounts. The nodes executing a contract are similar to cogs synchronized to
moveinside of a clock, as they work in a harmonious fashion and reach the matching final
State.
There exists a caveat though.When one user uploads a smart contract through their node, it
is included in the latest block and propagated around the network, where it is stored on
every other node in the network. In order to prevent manipulation of the Ethereum
Blockchain and hijacking of global computing resources by singular entities, the concept of
gas is introduced. Gas costs accompany each transaction and serves as a metering
mechanism that restricts computation to reasonable limits, deterring network actors from
acting maliciously.
Tracking its progression from inception till date one thing remains obvious the work is far
from finished. The previous iteration of the web, provided to us centralized sources of data
making users passengers and not drivers concerning data they own, whats worse is singular
points of failure provide a black hat hacker with the right tool-set an opportunity to exploit
numerous vulnerabilities to cause significant downtime to a service and loss of earnings,
maybe even worse. The blockchain, the web’s latest iteration eliminates that with a
cryptographically secure, distributed and immutable ledger that registers transaction data
on-chain, a datastore network participants can hardly corrupt so long as the blockchain is
built correctly. Not that it is without it’s limitation, these limitations though will fade in time
as awareness of its powers spreads through society, bringing on a novel and innovative way
of interacting with web services. Thereby changing the world as we know it. This in essence
why we all should be fascinated and pay attention to developments in this space, as it
promises a world where true digital ownership can be achieved without the need for 3rd
party services. Already the impact cuts across various fields from Finance to healthcare, even
to arts and collectibles, still it promises more offerings not only for the present but for the
future also.
Oluijimi is a Blockchain Analyst. Can be reached at: Email- jimijay.oj@gmail.com
Twitter- dafejay.
By: JOSHUA OLUJIMI