Page 243 - Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Everything

224 Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Everything

Fig. 12.4 Energy blockchain roadmap: part 3: energy markets (Mylrea & Gourisetti,
2017).

One of the general misconceptions about blockchain definitions is caused by
the assumption that blockchain equals Bitcoin (Walch, 2017). While block-
chains include cryptocurrencies and transactions recorded publicly, private
or permissioned blockchains often do not include an exchange of value and
do not record anything publicly. Yet Google defines (Walch, 2017) block-
chain as “a digital ledger in which transactions made in Bitcoin or another
cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly.” Similarly,
Investopedia’s definition associates blockchain with decentralized ledgers
of cryptocurrencies: “A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public led-
ger of all cryptocurrency transactions” (Walch, 2017). Definitions are evolv-
ing and may contradict or significantly differ greatly across sector,
application, functional requirements, and technology stacks being deployed.
PoW, PoA, zero proof, and proof of burn are just some of the different
descriptions of the consensus algorithms that establish the trust mechanisms