What is Link? Link is an open source protocol for embedding data in the blockchain of Crypto-currencies.
Why would you want to do that? Crypto-currencies like Bitcoin have a number of useful properties which Link exploits:
- The blockchain is built on a peer-to-peer network which makes broadcasting of data far and wide easy to accomplish.
- The blockchain is verified by all the participants in the network, meaning data embedded within it cannot become corrupted.
- The blockchain is used as a record of account, so it already has existing utility, meaning it's less likely to be censored.
- The act of embedding data in the blockchain via the Link protocol requires users to spend their coins, meaning there's a cost associated with publishing.
By building on these foundational properties, Link allows anyone to publish data in a way that is effectively anonymous, and will be very hard to censor, yet easy to find.
Does it destroy coins? Yes. Every publish requires spending to addresses for which the private key isn't known. This causes further deflation of the currency, making the existing coins more valuable.
But won't this bloat the blockchain? While the blockchain will increase in size with every piece of data published, because the coins are being destroyed, they can never move again. This means they will never generate another transaction to increase the size of the blockchain. Any cost in size is paid once and never again, as opposed to when coins transfer ownership and will subsequently generate more transaction. If the blockchain was only used for this purpose, there would be an upper limit on the blockchain size, as opposed to the present assumption that it will grow forever. So while adding data to the blockchain will increase the size of it, it can't possibly increase it more than sending coins around.
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