Every time we hear about blockchain networks, it is almost certain that they refer to a Cryptocurrency or something related to a decentralized application, but what many enthusiasts do not know or know very little about is that there are currently blockchains that maintain their network with a central administration that controls all the flow of information from the different nodes.
And perhaps this sounds a bit contradictory to what we have been seeing within the Cryptocurrency ecosystem and its fight against centralization, but in a certain way this technology is not unique in Cryptocurrency environments or in decentralized organizations.
Currently, many organizations and companies have begun to implement the use of blockchain for multiple areas and processes of their own company, that is, they use the generosity offered by this technology and take full advantage of it to efficiently complete a task or problem that is presented to them.
A centralized blockchain is practically the same as its decentralized counterpart, where in summary a blockchain is a ledger that is shared among various participants in the network, but unalterable, which means that none of these participants can change the information. already settled; Its main function is to facilitate the process of recording transactions and monitoring assets in a business network, and this asset can be a physical or digital object, thus reducing risk and costs for all those involved or participants in the network.
It is called centralized since in this case there is a central node or main server through which transactions or the flow of information of said network are managed, and despite the fact that there are external nodes or users, they must always respond to the main node in order to settle a transaction or process within the system.
Currently they are widely used by companies with multiple locations that seek to control the processes of each one of them and coordinate these processes without having to spend great logistical efforts, they are also used by companies or organizations to know the traceability of a product or asset; Despite being relatively new, this technology has managed to position itself very well in private companies and centralized organizations.
Currently there are many companies that have chosen to implement blockchain technology in some of their processes, in order to improve their technological infrastructure and at the same time improve their security and efficiency. Thanks to the benefits of this technology, companies from different industries can adapt their operations to the Blockchain security model. Below we can see the variety of fields in which blockchain technology can be implemented and how they are used by different organizations.
Blockchain technology is used in electronic commerce for multiple processes, one of these being the verification of authenticity of documents, being Tencent one of the companies that uses its own chain of blocks to verify the authenticity of the invoices and thus guarantee tax compliance in its transactions. In the same way, another asian giant of electronic commerce such as Ali Baba gives another use to this technology, where through its own centralized blockchain it manages to track its luxury products and maintain control of the traceability of such valuable assets.
Tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Google and Baidu have implemented their own chains of blocks to maintain control and security of the data stored on their platforms, some of which are aimed at improving security in the storage of their users’ data and others of simple data from their operational processes.
As we mentioned before, this technology is very popular among logistics solutions companies, such as shipping companies UPS and FedEx, where the latter uses a centralized blockchain developed by IBM in order to resolve disputes with clients; or we can also find companies like Nestlé, Samsung or Maersk that use this tool to monitor and track food products in the case of Nestlé, technological products and parts in the case of Samsung, or movements in shipments between ports in the case of Maersk.
It may be a bit surprising to see this item using blockchain technology, but really if we see its potential for use, you will wonder, why is it not used everywhere? Well, in terms of medical care, companies such as MetLife and UnitedHealthcare have implemented their own blockchains that are used to generate and submit insurance claim forms, or to store patient medical records that become unalterable and in the issuance of medical prescriptions.
As we can see, blockchain technology, whether centralized or decentralized, can solve an endless number of problems or achieve better efficiency in some procedures in multiple industrial areas, whether from online purchases or the protection of sensitive information, which is why sometimes we must recognize that not every centralized process is oppressive or goes against technological evolution.
En ocasiones las mismas empresas que implementan esta tecnología en sus operaciones son las que desarrollan su propia cadena de bloques y las adaptan a sus necesidades, sin embargo hay compañías como IBM o Intel que han estado prestando el servicio de desarrollo de blockchain al sector empresarial.
Todo depende de las necesidades de sus usuarios finales, en las empresas se requieren blockchain centralizadas ya que no son organizaciones públicas cuya clientela tiene acceso a sus datos de forma libre, por este motivo requieren controlar la red de bloques; sin embargo cuando ya hay una comunidad que de forma concreta está formada por completos desconocidos es necesario la descentralización y evitar que alguien tome el control, por este motivo se busca el consenso dentro de esta red.
En teoría ambos modelos poseen las mismas características, sin embargo en las redes centralizadas en ocasiones son un poco más lapsos en su seguridad, sin embargo esto no quiere decir que sean vulnerables.
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