Blockchain Networks: Token Design and Management Overview

Blockchain technology has enabled a new software paradigm for managing digital ownership in partial- or zero-trust environments. It uses tokens to conduct transactions, exchange verifiable data, and achieve coordination across organizations and on the web. Fundamental to this representation is that users have the ability to directly control token custody in digital wallets through public-key cryptography and to interact with one another in a peer-to-peer manner.

Blockchain networks provide secure transaction reconciliation, linkage, and storage in consolidated, integrity-protected distributed ledgers—forming mutually operated record-keeping execution environments or virtual machines. Data models with varied capabilities and scopes have been defined to issue tokens which additional protocols can help manage while allowing for separation of concerns. Security and recovery mechanisms make it possible for users to set up self-hosted, externally hosted, and hybrid account custody models. Scaling schemes have been developed to accommodate transactions off-chain with deferred on-chain settlement, as well as deposit contracts with built-in, self-enforceable conditions to exchange tokens without intermediaries, transaction submission rules to fit in with different deployment scenarios, and privacy-enhancing techniques to protect user confidentiality.

 

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