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title: How it works
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<section class="section section-features-main">
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            <h1 class="section-title">Blockchains meet Big Data.</h1>
            <p class="section-description">BigchainDB combines the key benefits of distributed DBs and traditional blockchains, with an emphasis on scale.</p>
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        <p>We built BigchainDB on top of an enterprise-grade distributed DB, from which BigchainDB inherits high throughput, high capacity, a full-featured NoSQL query language, efficient querying, and permissioning.</p>

        <figure class="grid__col">
            <img class="img--responsive" src="http://placekitten.com.s3.amazonaws.com/homepage-samples/408/287.jpg" />
            <figcaption>BigchainDB compared to the Bitcoin blockchain and traditional distributed DBs</figcaption>
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<section class="section section-ecosystem background--darker">
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            <h1 class="section-title">Made for the Decentralization Ecosystem.</h1>
            <p class="section-description">BigchainDB is complementary to decentralized processing platforms like Ethereum, decentralized file systems like IPFS and communication building blocks. It can also be used side by side with identity protocols, financial asset protocols, IP assets protocols and glue protocols. BigchainDB provides a bridge to an eventually fully decentralized system.</p>
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                <img class="img--responsive" src="http://placekitten.com.s3.amazonaws.com/homepage-samples/408/287.jpg" />
                <figcaption>BigchainDB fills a missing gap in the emerging decentralized stack as a blockchain database that complements existing platforms, processing and file systems.</figcaption>
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                <img class="img--responsive" src="http://placekitten.com.s3.amazonaws.com/homepage-samples/408/287.jpg" />
                <figcaption>BigchainDB can be seamlessly integrated into the traditional stack as a blockchain database for decentralized timestamping, certificates, smart contracts and transactions.
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<section class="section section-features">
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            <h1 class="section-title">Features.</h1>
            <p class="section-description">Rather than trying to scale up blockchain technology, the BigchainDB design starts with a "big data" distributed database and then adds blockchain characteristics - decentralized control, immutability and the transfer of digital assets.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">One Million Writes and Counting</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">Each write is recorded on the blockchain without the need for Merkle Trees or sidechains.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Petabytes Capacity</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">Load up hashes, metadata and files onto the BigchainDB so every asset can reside on the blockchain.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Linear Scaling</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">The more nodes added, the faster BigchainDB works and the more storage capacity is made available.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Native Support of Multiassets</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">With no native currency on BigchainDB, any asset, token or currency can be issued.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Query</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">Leverage efficient big data query capabilities out of the box.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Customizable</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">Design your own private network with custom assets, transactions, permissions and transparency.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Rich Permissioning</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">Set permissions to ensure a clear separation of duties and enforce Chinese walls.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Federation Consensus Model</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">Decentralized control via a federation of nodes with voting permissions makes for a super-peer P2P network.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Open source</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">Open sourced to the community so that everyone can use it and build their own applications on top of it.</p>
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                        <h1 class="feature__title">Public or Private</h1>
                        <p class="feature__text">A public version via trusted nodes for the world and a private one for specific industry use cases.</p>
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        </div>

        <p class="text-center">
            For more insight, read our <a href="/whitepaper/">whitepaper</a>.
        </p>
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</section>

<section class="section section-usecases background--darker">
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            <h1 class="section-title">Use Cases.</h1>
            <p class="section-description">Many BigchainDB use cases are like traditional blockchain use cases, except focused on situations where higher throughput, more capacity, lower latency, better querying, or richer permissioning is necessary.</p>
        </header>

        <ul>
            <li>Legally-binding contracts can be stored directly on the BigchainDB next to the transaction, in a format that is readable by humans and computers.</li>
            <li>Creation and real-time movement of high-volume assets. Only the owner of the asset can move the asset, rather than the network administrator like in previous database systems. This capability reduces costs, minimizes transaction latency, and enables new applications.</li>
            <li>Tracking high-volume physical assets along whole supply chain. BigchainDB can help reduce fraud, providing massive cost savings. Every RFID tag in existence could be entered on a BigchainDB.</li>
            <li>Tracking intellectual property assets along the licensing chain. BigchainDB can reduce licensing friction in channels connecting creators to audiences, and gives perfect provenance to digital artifacts. A typical music service has 38 million songs—BigchainDB could store this information in a heartbeat, along with licensing information about each song and information about use by subscribers.</li>
            <li>Time stamping, receipts, and certification. BigchainDB reduces legal friction by providing irrefutable evidence of an electronic action. And, BigchainDB is big enough that supporting information like receipts and certificates of authenticity (COAs) can be stored directly on it, rather than linking to the document or storing a hash.</li>
            <li>Improving database reliability by creating resistance to single points of failure. This reliability helps move past the status quo where a single hack leads to massive data loss, like in Target, Sony, or the OPM.</li>
        </ul>
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</section>

<section class="section section-timeline background--photo">
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            <h1 class="section-title">Timeline.</h1>
            <p class="section-description">Private beta is shipping now. <a href="/contact/">Contact us</a> for more information. Public Bigchain will be released soon</p>
        </header>

        <figure class="timeline grid grid--full grid-small--fit grid--gutters">
            <div class="timeline__entry grid__col">
                <span class="timeline__entry__title">Whitepaper</span>
                <span class="timeline__entry__time">Early 2015</span>
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            <div class="timeline__entry grid__col">
                <span class="timeline__entry__title">Private Beta</span>
                <span class="timeline__entry__time">Jan 2016</span>
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            <div class="timeline__entry timeline__entry--future grid__col">
                <span class="timeline__entry__title">Public</span>
                <span class="timeline__entry__time">Soon</span>
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</section>