Asset ownership in blockchain

A blockchain network is a decentralized peer-to-peer network, where nodes communicate with each other to create, exchange, and validate blocks. Most of the users in the blockchain network are interested in the application layer of the blockchain where operations can be performed by creating transactions. An identity can easily be created in the network, as we saw in the previous section of this chapter. Nodes can perform operations such as asset creation or asset transfer. Each operation that deals with assets is valid if they are approved by the asset owner. The asset owners prove their identity by signing the transactions using their private key.

Asset management operations, such as transferring the asset, can only be performed by the owner, but it can be verified by anyone in the network. All the operation details are embedded in transactions, and digital signatures are used by the asset owners to sign those transactions. They then broadcast these transactions to every node in the blockchain so that they are included in the next block to be appended to the blockchain ledger.