# Next-Generation Blockchain Technology:
## 6 Application to Blockchain-Entropic Blockchain  
Blockchains are decentralized databases. The blocks within a blockchain contain data/transactions in digital format, as well as the hash keys and time stamps. Blocks are  
Figure 2: Schematic diagram of the proposed methodology with which to generate the entropic barcode of any digital asset. then appended to the blockchain in chronological order, i.e., sequentially as they are created. Figure 3 shows a diagrammatic representation of a blockchain. Since blockchains are composed of blocks of digital information, the entropic barcoding technology of a digital file described in the previous section can be applied to the blockchain databases, just as detailed in the Section 5. This process will be explained here, and the result is a superior blockchain, called an Entropic Blockchain. Although it is technically possible to retrofit the proposed Entropic Blockchain with the existing blockchains, this is not our objective. Instead, we hope that this research will stimulate the emergence of new blockchains built with the Entropic Blockchain technology. The method involves the conversion of all the blocks' content into a string of bytes. The result is another block, which is a unique expression of the initial block, but its information content is expressed as a string of digital bytes. The block of bytes is then processed into a string of bits 0 s and 1 s. The result is a new block represented as a binary string, which is again a unique representation of the initial block's content. At this stage, the method allows for two possible implementation options, as shown diagrammatically in Figure 4:  
Option 1: To compress the entire block's information into a single IE numerical value by selecting the \(\text{WS}=N\) and calculating the IE value of the block. Option 2: To compress the entire block's information into an Entropic Barcode. Both proposed options result in massive one-way data compression and simultaneous encryption. However, the encryption achieved in this way is irreversible because there is no process of reconstructing the block's information from the IE value or from the entropic barcode. In this sense, the IE value or the entropic barcode of the block are similar to a block's Hash ke because any changes to the data inside the block will result in changes to the IE value or changes to its entropic barcode. Figure 5 shows diagrammatically the methodology proposed for the implementation of these two options to an entire blockchain database. Figure 4: The implementation of the Entropic Barcoding method to a single block of a blockchain. Option 1—convert the entire block into a single numerical value equal to the information entropy of the block; Option 2—convert the entire block into an Entropic Barcode. Figure 3: A diagrammatic representation of a blockchain. Repeating the procedure described in Figure 4 for the entire blockchain, i.e., for each block within the blockchain, Option 1 will produce an entropic barcode of IE values versus the block numbers, which is a unique 2D barcode of the entire blockchain. Deploying Option 2 will convert the entire blockchain into a chain of entropic barcodes, in which an entropic barcode represents each block, and a chain on \(N\) blocks will result in a chain of \(N\) entropic barcodes. Both proposed options drastically reduce the size of a blockchain while simultaneously encrypting its content. However, the new entropic barcode representation of the entire blockchain (Option 1) is particularly attractive because it could be used for fast peer-to-peer validation via the entropic differential barcoding technique (see Section 7). Using Option 1 as an example, a 1-2 Mb block would be represented by a decimal number and its index, taking only a few bytes of data. Assuming the Bitcoin blockchain is converted into a Bitcoin Entropic Blockchain, the entire Bitcoin blockchain of around 578 Gb size today would be represented by an entropic barcode of around 8.5 Mb.