
JP Morgan recently tested a blockchain transaction in space, using Danish space firm GomSpace’s satellites. But what is blockchain transfer? How will this help in peer-to-peer satellite marketplace opportunities?
Crux of the Matter
What’s Special About This?
It is the world’s first bank-led tokenized value transfer in space. It was executed with the help of a blockchain network.
How Did This Take Place?
The transaction happened between 2 GOMX-4 satellites in the low Earth orbit (LEO). This made it a ‘decentralised’ approach i.e where dependency on a single server point, like on the earth, is not necessary.
Future Scope
There is a possibility of a peer-to-peer satellite marketplace. This allows satellite data transfers against payment, as private companies prepare to launch their own constellations.
What Is Blockchain?
It is a structure that stores transactional records or blocks of public data, in several databases or the “chain.”
What Is A Ledger?
The network connected through peer-to-peer nodes forms a digital ledger i.e it contains replicated and shared digital data, geographically spread across multiple sites.
How Does This Make It Secure?
Every transaction in this ledger is authorized by the digital signature of the owner. This authenticates the transaction and prevents any meddling.
What About Mining?
It is the process of adding transactional details to the present digital/public ledger. So it validates every step while operating bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies.
Read in detail about blockchain: What Is Blockchain And Blockchain-Powered Driving License?
Curiopedia
- Cryptographer David Chaum first proposed a blockchain-like protocol in his 1982 dissertation “Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups.” Further work on a cryptographically secured chain of blocks was described in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta. They wanted to implement a system where document timestamps could not be tampered with.
- Blocks hold batches of valid transactions that are hashed and encoded into a Merkle tree. Each block includes the cryptographic hash of the prior block in the blockchain, linking the two. The linked blocks form a chain. This iterative process confirms the integrity of the previous block, all the way back to the initial block, which is known as the genesis block.
- The block time is the average time it takes for the network to generate one extra block in the blockchain. Some blockchains create a new block as frequently as every five seconds. In cryptocurrency, this is practically when the transaction takes place, so a shorter block time means faster transactions.