Day 1 - Blockchain, Solidity, and Smart Contract

This was an introduction to why blockchain, decentralization, and what exactly is a smart contract is as an overview. Following is the small notes of what I have learned in this

Bitcoin

First protocol to use blockchain
Powered by cryptography
Digital store of value aka a digital goldmine
It is in scarce quantity

Smart Contract

Smart contracts allow for agreements without centralized intermediaries
These are the self-executing sets of instruction, without the 3rd parties

Decentralized And Hybrid Application

The Oracle Problem - Everything that happens in the blockchain is in a small box, needs real-world data.
To fetch the real word data the decentralized application must go hybrid and contact third parties outside of their blockchain network

Following are the advantages of the decentralized application:

No central authority - No one can turn off a switch and stop you from doing what you want to do
Transparency & flexibility - Everything that happens in the blockchain is visible to everyone
Speed and Efficiency - The time it takes to respond to a certain task is less
Security & Immutability - Blockchains are immutable (state cannot be changed once done), which makes them secure
Removal of counterparty risk: Imagine taking insurance and the insurance company doesn't pay your bills, the decentralized application removes these kinds of risks
trust minimized agreements (Math-based agreements): centralized applications are trust based as our confidence is directly associated with the central authority example - loans, insurance, aggreements. Now, in the case of blockchain, everything is math-based, as everything happens in code.