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Alright so I'm trying wrap my head around this whole big topic, including smart contracts.

What I don't understand is, with Blockchain technology we rely on others doing the verification of my proposed transactions (my new block). This means that if I were to tamper with some blocks and attempt to rewrite the history, it would be detected immediately by other nodes.

Here's where my issue with it kicks in. People say that small businesses could implement the blockchain aswell, but doesn't this whole blockchain fall flat if at times only 1 user is online? Or even nobody? In those cases, there would be no entity to prevent the changes in the history, making it vulnerable?

Is there any possibility to continue the verification for those nodes? From my understanding there seems to be no way.

Additional question: Does anyone know resources on blockchain being used for proof of deletion, meaning an evidence of some deletion of records, data, etc.? Thanks in advance

mkV
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It would depend on the policy on how the consensus is reached. The consensus is reached differently in different blockchains. If all the nodes responsible for verification go down, the new blocks will not be added to the blockchain. Therefore, no further transaction will go through.

Regarding small businesses using blockchain, You don't need to be the part of the verification process (consensus step) to be the part of the blockchain. Small businesses can use public blockchains where the verification is handled by the network or the permissioned blockchain where it is assumed that participants taking part in consensus trust each other to some extent.

To use blockchain as a proof of deletion, you just go through the previous transactions and verify the state variables. Blockchain is tamper-proof, so the records aren't deleted as such but the state is changed that provides the audit-trail and serves as evidence of deletion of records or data.

Arpit Bajpai
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  • Thanks for answering! So your middle part about the usage of public blockchains, is it like using the Ethereum blockchain to verify some internal processes inside the company? Like some kind of smart contract? Also, I suppose the pseudo-deletion is creating quite some issues with gdpr already – mkV Jun 27 '20 at 17:55