Blockchain isn’t a fad, a fairy tale, or a temporary sensation that will soon pass away – it’s the future.
Its success is not hinged on the hype it’s getting. Looking at everything, the back alleys of Silicon Valley and Wall Street are littered with scraps of revolutionary tech ideas that were supposed to be the next big thing but instead ended up crashing and burning.
Blockchain has withstood the test of time, and it’s safe to say that it’s here to stay and revolutionise the global financial system.
What’s Blockchain?
Blockchain is an open-source technology that underpins digital currency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, IOTA, Litecoin, and the likes). The technology allows data to be distributed between multiple nodes (computers).
Usually, it’s described as a digital ledger stored in a distributed network.
Another way to picture it:
A blockchain operates a lot like a spreadsheet that’s been duplicated multiple times and shared across thousands of computers. The difference is that this network has been designed to update the spreadsheet regularly.
How Blockchain Works?
There’s a reason people refer to blockchain as the “internet of value.”
People publish stories on the internet so that it can be accessed from anywhere. It’s the same thing with blockchain.
Instead of sending information, blockchain allows you to send value to any part of this globe so as long as the recipient is in a position to access the blockchain file. However, you need private cryptographic keys to edit your block.
What’s Blockchain Development?
Blockchain development is the process of architecting, developing, and ensuring the security of a blockchain-based application or system.
A blockchain developer, on the other hand, tags anyone involved in the development of blockchain technology. It’s therefore expected that such a person will have a strong mix of programming skills and in areas such as data structures, cryptography, computer networking, and algorithms.
Why is Blockchain Important?
The internet allows information to be shared online. The problem sets in when you have to transfer value – money, intellectual property, or ownership rights. We have to fall back to traditional, old-fashioned, centralised establishments or institutions like banks.
A few online payment methods have sprung up – PayPal being the most common example – but generally, they all have to be integrated with your credit card and bank account.
Enters Blockchain, which eliminates the middleman. It does this by filling up all the roles played by the traditional financial sector – and that is, establishing identity, establishing contracts, and recording transactions.
Types of Blockchain Developers
The easiest way to understand blockchain development is to understand its two subcategories.
Core Blockchain Developers
A core blockchain developer is involved in the design, architecture, and security of a blockchain system.
Blockchain Software Developers
A blockchain software developer builds web apps using blockchain’s structure and protocols.
What Does a Blockchain Developer Do?
What a blockchain developer does will again vary depending on whether they’re a core blockchain developer or blockchain software developer.
Here’s what a core blockchain developer does:
- Designs consensus protocols
- Designs the security patterns for the entire network
- Designs blockchain protocol
- Designs the network architecture
Here’s What a Blockchain Software Developer Does?
The role of a blockchain software developer has nothing to do with the blockchain’s architecture or unanimity design. They instead use already existing blockchain to build decentralised apps (Dapps).
Their role includes:
- Develops interactive front-ends for decentralised applications
- Develops smart contracts
- Develops the backend of blockchain apps
- Supervises the entire stack running their decentralised apps
Real-world Application of Blockchain
One common misconception people have about blockchain is that it’s limited to cryptocurrency. What these people don’t know is that cryptocurrency can track, store, and refer to the records or transaction of anything valuable: from electoral votes to medical records.
That being said, here are a few real-world applications of blockchain:
Pharmaceutical Industry
How do you tell if a drug you picked from a local pharmacy is genuine, especially at a time like this when drug counterfeiting has become a global phenomenon? Well, the blockchain network steps in with a solution again by providing all the relevant information about a drug, including the manufacturer, date of manufacture, and standards.
Internet of Things
IoT is about interpolating different smart devices. Examples include home automation. A smart alarm clock wakes you up and then goes on to alert a smart coffee maker to prepare some coffee for you. Blockchain enhances IoT. It’s what IoT devices are using to note down feeds, diagnostic data, and behavioural data. This data is then sent to the nodes (computers) where it’s examined and determined if it’s fit for storage.
File Storage
File storage refers to the centralised cloud-storage solutions offered by companies such as Google Drive. It’s a risky undertaking, especially in this era of advanced and sophisticated cyber-attacks. Centralised systems are catnip and an easy target for cybercriminals. With blockchain, though, your data can be distributed to a chain of encrypted data storage systems. Accessing your data will be the next thing to impossible due to the sophisticated blockchain data encryption.
Voting Systems
The voting system is no longer what it used to be. Blockchain has inspired so much accountability and confidence in the system than you’ve ever imagined. Things don’t just end with you casting your vote. That vote has to be tracked down until it’s counted. With blockchain, every voter has an identity, which must be verified before they can proceed to vote. You even have the power to track down your vote and ensure it’s counted. So yes, your vote counts where blockchain is involved.
Blockchain Development Career
It’s now established that the blockchain technology has a lot to offer to business institutions. So, it’s only natural that many of them will turn to it to leverage some of its strength. Agreeing with this statement is one of the leading online freelance platforms, Upwork, which seems to suggest that blockchain-related jobs are among the most in-demand tasks on the platform.
For those that wish to explore blockchain as a career, here are the different blockchain career options to choose from:
Blockchain developer
Learn to build blockchain apps or decentralised app from scratch by programming them to life. This requires that you acquire vast skills in a mix of programming languages, especially JavaScript, Python, and C++.
Blockchain Solutions Architect
A blockchain solutions architect is a problem solver. They’re always looking around for ways that they can use blockchain solutions to solve real-world problems. They come up with possible blockchain solutions that they emulate and communicate to relevant stakeholders – such as Blockchain developers.
Blockchain Project Manager
A blockchain project manager leads both the technical and non-technical undertaking of any blockchain project. They’re tasked with the role of overseeing everything – from the design, development, and implementation of blockchain projects.
Blockchain UX designer
Blockchain UX designer is responsible for the experiences that users get from using your blockchain app. They bridge the gap between functionality and usability.
Blockchain UI Designer
A blockchain UI designer is responsible for the user interface of your app. They shape its layout and make it more appealing and user-friendly to those that interact with it. They’re proficient in artistic and graphic design skills, besides paying attention to small details.
Blockchain Legal Consultant
This is one of the most uncharted territories for most organisations. Legal issues do arise when people adopt blockchain technologies. As a blockchain legal consultant, your job is to offer legal counsel on matters relating to blockchain implementation and development. In addition to understanding how the world of blockchain works, a blockchain legal consultant has to be well-versed in international laws.
Types of Blockchain
The blockchain technology can be broadly classified into three:
Public Blockchain
Public blockchain is designed for the public or the people. It’s usually an open-source platform where anyone is free to participate, either as a miner, user, or developer. It’s an application designed based on the power of work, and where all the transactions are open and free for anyone to refer to.
Examples: Ethereum and Bitcoin
Here are the distinguishing characters of a public blockchain:
- Anyone is free to run a node and mine. There’s nothing to restrict anyone or a set of rules to bar anyone from joining the network
- Anyone is free to initiate or carry out a transaction
- Anyone is free to analyse blockchain blocks and all of its transactions
Advantages of Public Blockchain:
- It’s trustworthy: more so since everything is arrived at through a consensus algorithm, after all transactions and transacting parties have been certified.
- Transparency: With a public blockchain, everything is open to be audited by anyone. The digital ledgers are open to the public for anyone to see and audit.
- Secured: The considerable number of users and participants means there’s a significant number of distributed nodes, which makes them quite impossible to be targeted and manipulated.
Private Blockchain
Private block-chain operates on a permission-based basis, in a private network that’s restrictive to the public. It’s more of private property, and only serving the whims of a particular organisation. That means participants have to be reservedly added and strictly adhere to a predetermined set of rules.
Example: Multichain
Here are the common characteristics of a private blockchain:
- It’s centralised (not decentralised as with public blockchain).
- The network is restrictive to those who wish to join. You have to be reservedly added or approved to join.
- Transactions can only be carried out by a few selected individuals
Disadvantages of Private Blockchain:
- Lower transaction rate: Due to the few participants, transactions tend to take a little longer to process.
- Hard to Scale: Also, due to the few participants, adding more transactions can prove to be a little problematic, especially since they slow down the transaction rate.
Private blockchains are mostly used in a voting system, asset system, or any other area that requires more restrictive access.
Consortium Blockchain
As the name suggests, this blockchain is operated by a consortium or group of organisation or individuals. This may include a group of financial institutions such as banks.
It’s more of a private blockchain, only that it has more participants and flexibility. It’s also decentralised, but unlike public blockchain, its users and mining nodes are usually pre-defined.
Examples of Consortium blockchain: Ripple and EWF
Key Benefits of Blockchain Development to Business
There are so many ways a business may benefit from utilising blockchain technology. We’d like to highlight a few of these benefits:
Effectiveness
Secure transactions are done quickly and without the interference or involvement of third-party mediators, especially banks.
High-level Monitor
Blockchain makes it possible to record all transactions in their right sequence forever. This allows for easy monitoring and tracking of different business activities.
Traceability
With blockchain, it’s possible to track goods, votes, or the transactions in a supply chain.
Transparency
Transactions are always open for anyone to audit or review.
Secure Ledger
You can modify your transaction block, but only after entering a private, verifiable cryptography-generated key.
Quality Assurance
Blockchain technology can also be adopted for the purpose of quality assurance, or when something goes beyond or falls behind predefined quality standards. It can notify you and point out the need for investigation or recall.
Programming Languages Used in Blockchain
Looking to jumpstart your career as a blockchain developer? You can start by digging through this section of the article, where we’ll be introducing you to a few of these languages, and even offering a few resources that you can explore for more information.
Here we go:
C++
This is the oldest programming language on the list, first introduced in 1985. It’s a language with a steep learning curve, with a relatively outdated syntax when compared to its peers.
Learning Resources:
JavaScript
JavaScript is a widely used, loosely-typed programming language for scripting. Its primary role is to enhance static HTML/CSS webpages by turning them into full-fledged UIs. Examples of these UIs include refreshing pages, animations, user menus, interactive maps, and dialog boxes.
Learning Resources:
Python
Python is a relatively modern programming language and an ideal choice of language for newcomers. It has a simple syntax that’s both easy to read and write. It’s also backed up by a massive supporting community. While you can’t technically use native python to write a decentralised app, hold an ICO, or contribute to any blockchain, almost every blockchain ecosystem has a public tool that’s written in python.
Learning Resources:
Go
Go is a short form of GoLang, a modern domain-general programming language introduced in 2007 by Google. It’s a multipurpose programming language that strives to combine user-friendliness and syntax in modern programming languages such as JavaScript and Python.
Learning Resources:
Solidity
Solidity operates a whole lot like JavaScript. It’s a domain-specific programmed language introduced a few years back by the Ethereum Group, to help developers create Dapps for the Ethereum platform.
Learning Resources:
- Solidity Documentation
- Consensys Academy
The Current State of Blockchain Market in Singapore
According to a recent report by the Genesis Market Insights, the Asia-pacific region is currently the fastest growing blockchain market in the world. Confirming this is another report by a consulting PwC firm, which goes on to add that 82 of company executives in Singapore have underway plans to implement blockchain initiatives. Of these, 13% have already implemented the initiative.
So how comes Singapore is the leading example of how the blockchain technology has been adopted in Singapore, and what exactly is the driving force behind this market:
Beyond Crypto
Singapore has some of the best blockchain researchers in the world. That, coupled with the fact that they have a government that has been at the forefront in supporting innovation gives them an edge over any other country in the Asia Pacific region.
It’s about tech, and the more a country becomes more technologically advanced, the more you’re likely to hear that they’re launching an ICO.
The blockchain start-ups in Singapore aren’t just confined to crypto but exploring other markets as well. As a result, Singapore is becoming a hotspot for blockchain enthusiasts, with lots of these entrepreneurs carving their own niche in their respective markets.
The Sample Cost of Blockchain Development in Singapore
What’s the cost of hiring a blockchain developer in Singapore?
First, before we touch on price, please note that blockchain development skills aren’t all-rounded, but a niche. There are low-end blockchain developers, and then there are premium ones.
For example, an Ethereum developer should know how to develop Dapps for the Ethereum platform.
On average, a blockchain earns about S$95K per annum, according to Paysa. Glassdoor has slightly lower rates for them at $80K per annum.
The Cost of Building a Blockchain App
The cost of building a blockchain app varies depending on a list of factors, including the app features, type of blockchain, complexity, the underlying blockchain platform, and other technological factors.
Here’s a list of question you might want to answer before you look at the cost of building the app:
- Are you looking to build a new blockchain app from the ground up, or do you wish to integrate an existing app product with blockchain?
- What hosting do you plan do use for the app? — Public blockchain or private?
- Will your blockchain app be dealing with financial transactions?
- What interface will you be using for the app — mobile apps, web interface, admin interface or all these options/
- Do you need proof of concept?
- How many users or participants will your app have?
Here’s a general price structure of setting up a blockchain app in Singapore:
A professionally done white paper: $750 to $1500
A Basic Landing page or website: about $450
Complete blockchain platform from the ground up (basic platform, with mining features, payment functionality, and a unique ERC20 token): $5000 to $50000
ERC20 token alone with customised smart contract: about $3000
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