In 1982, Leslie Lambert proposed the Byzantine Generals Problem, extending the process of obtaining consensus among the various military forces and deciding whether to send troops to the field of computing, trying to establish a decentralized system with high fault tolerance system.
In this system, even if some nodes fail, it can still ensure the normal operation of the system, and allow multiple nodes based on zero trust to reach consensus, thereby ensuring the consistency of information transmission.
David Jom proposed a cryptographic anonymous cash payment system that emphasizes privacy.
This system has untraceable characteristics and is also the prototype of the blockchain in terms of privacy and security.
In 1985, elliptic curve cryptography was proposed.
Neil Kobletz and Victor Miller proposed Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), using elliptic curve for cryptography for the first time. Compared with RSA algorithm, the advantage of using ECC is that it can be used A short key (a parameter entered in the algorithm for converting plaintext to ciphertext or converting ciphertext to plaintext) achieves the same level of security.
In 1990, David Joom built an untraceable cryptographic anonymous electronic payment system based on previous theories, which was later Ecash, but Ecash is not a decentralized system.
Leslie Lambert proposed Paxos, a consensus algorithm with high fault tolerance.
In 1991, Stuart Huber and W. Scott Stoneta proposed a protocol to ensure the security of Crypto files with time stamps. This concept was later adopted by the Bitcoin blockchain system.
In 1992, Scott Vanstone and others proposed the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA).
In 1997, Adam Baker invented Hashcash (Hash Cash). Hashcash is a Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm. This algorithm relies on the irreversible characteristics of the cost function to achieve easy verification but difficult to be cracked The feature was first used to block spam.
Hashcash later became one of the key technologies adopted by the Bitcoin blockchain (Adam Baker officially published the Hashcash paper in 2002).
In 1998, Dai Wei published the anonymous decentralized electronic cash system B-money, introducing a proof-of-work mechanism, emphasizing peer-to-peer transactions and non-tampering features.
However, in B-money, the hashcash algorithm proposed by Adam Baker is not used. Many of Dai Wei’s designs were later adopted by the Bitcoin blockchain.
Nick Sabo released the decentralized Crypto currency system Bit Gold, where participants can contribute computing power to solve crypto puzzles.
In 2005, Hal Finney proposed a reusable Proofs of Work (RPoW) mechanism, combined with the hashcash algorithm proposed by B-money and Adam Baker to create crypto Crypto currency.
In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper on Bitcoin, describing a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that can build a decentralized electronic trading system on the basis of no trust.
The first generation of blockchain was born. In 2014, Vitalik Butrin (Vitalik Buterin) released an Ethereum white paper and proposed the concept of smart contracts for the transfer of Crypto assets other than currency, such as stocks and bonds.
Developers can develop various distributed applications (DAPP) based on smart contracts on the Ethereum network, which greatly expands the application scenarios of the blockchain, and the second generation of blockchain was born.
In 2015, this year was the highlight of blockchain technology.
Several important technologies and applications designed to improve the performance of the blockchain system, break through the bottleneck of the blockchain network operating speed, and expand the blockchain application scenarios, including IPFS (InterPlanetary File System, Chinese name interstellar file) System), Lightning Network, Graphene Technology, Interledger Payment Protocol (ILP), etc.
So far, the underlying technology of the blockchain is basically mature. At present, what the industry is mainly doing is to improve the operating efficiency and system performance of the blockchain, as well as to expand the practical application of the blockchain technology. Combined BaaS (Blockchain as a Service, Blockchain as a Service).