blockchain - Is Ganache Decentralized?

Question

I had a few Very Specific doubts, answers to which I looked for in various places but couldn't find. Hence I'd be thankful if someone who understands Blockchain Development can help me.

1. People say Cryptocurrency is an application of Blockchain, and blockchain is an seperate technology of it's own. But every Dapp tutorial (todolist, supply chain management, etc.) still require Ethereum when communicating with a blockchain. Can blockchain be implemented without cryptocurrency ?

2. Every tutorial uses Ganache. These tutorials never mention anything about Peer to Peer Nodes system. Does Ganache simulate a P2P Node system in the background ? Are apps built on Ganache centralized or decentralized ?

3. When Dapps are deployed, they are deployed in the Ethereum Main Network. Does every smart contract, Decentralized application, Ethereum Transaction, all of it live on One Giant Blockchain which is the Ethereum Main Network ? How is that manageable. Just some guidance will be helpful ? Where can I learn more about this. There are so many resources but I don't know where to start.

标签： blockchainethereum

Answer 1

1. Can blockchain be implemented without cryptocurrency ?

Yes. Blockchain is a way of storing data, where each block is chained to the previous one. For example:

Block 1:

{
    data: 'foo',
    previousHash: '0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000'
};

Block 2:

{
    data: 'bar',
    previousHash: 'd807da8ba0473afd6cb13d465d21e2d1e0e14598d8555afe5fe3e88c7e114b05'
};

where the previousHash in "Block 2" is the hash of the "Block 1".

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2. Are apps built on Ganache centralized or decentralized ?

Ganache is a local blockchain and Ethereum-like network emulator usually used for development and testing. Multiple instances of Ganache are not able to communicate with each other, so by this definition it's a centralized system.

However, apps that are built and tested locally on Ganache, can be deployed to decentralized networks such as Ethereum Ropsten testnet, Ethereum Mainnet, BSC Mainnet, etc.

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3. Does every smart contract, Decentralized application, Ethereum Transaction, all of it live on One Giant Blockchain which is the Ethereum Main Network ?

Smart contracts and transactions - yes, they all are stored in the Ethereum network blockchain.

DApps - they are usually consisted of smart contracts (see above) and off-chain apps (usually written in JavaScript and other web languages) that are usually hosted on a private server or a regular shared hosting.

How is that manageable

Currently, the Ethereum blockchain size is between 0.5 TB and 1 TB, depending on what node software you're using, and it's growing over time (source). It's discouraged here at StackOverflow to present personal opinions so I'll leave it to your decision if that's manageable or not. :)