Blockchain has been around for some time now. However, there is greater traction and noise about this technology due to the unprecedented need in automation. Like always, business disruption opens up the landscape for research and innovations.
We are seeing greater spends and budget allocations for AI and block chain backed solutions. India is at the forefront of this technology movement, with the government looking at ‘Enabling Ease of Business, Ease of Governance and Ease of Living’ through its blockchain implementation strategy. Check out the complete whitepaper presented by NITI Aayog at https://niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2020-01/Blockchain_The_India_Strategy_Part_I.pdf or the highlights at https://news.bitcoin.com/government-blockchain-india/
While Blockchain is considered the next big thing, we bring you 5 practical challenges in implementing a blockchain based solution.
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Attention to Design
Designing a Blockchain System is still a difficult job because the process will cause the entire system to collapse and compromise in case of a minor error. Once the consistency of the data is lost debugging is almost unrealistic.
Ex: If the validation algorithm of the chain is not robust and does perform detailed checks, this enables the attacker to manipulate the chains purity with ease.
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Roadblocks with Storage and Processing Capacity
The database used for creating chains of data requires to be very robust, fast & scalable to handle and process millions of data without slowing down the activity and maintaining such a database can be costly.
Ex: If the database is slow in storing and operating the blocks, soon due to high participation of the users the database may crash or get locked.
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Equal Access Rights is still a Utopian thought
All the users participating in the chain have equal rights and it can be tricky & difficult to handle a situation where a user is misbehaving or spamming on the Blockchain.
Ex: There is no legal way to kick out the user that is spamming the blockchain with useless data or has figured out a way to profit in some fashion that causes other users lots of inconvenience
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Consent for Everything
Any upgrades or changes required in the Blockchain cannot be forced or broadcasted unless all the users give their consent and accept the changes which is time consuming and bad for patching critical updates.
Ex: If you want to add new features or do some testing of newly developed feature. Every new version of the software adds hard testing scenarios and lengthens the time to release and it is not easy to get all the users agree with the new upgrades.
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Scalability equals Performance Overhead
When the chain becomes very large then the overall performance of the blockchain will be slower and it becomes hard to spread the copy of the data in every node participating in the blockchain. The same data has to exist in all the nodes of the blockchain making cost of transmission, verification and storage very high as every single copy of the database incurs some cost to it.