A blockchain is a decentralized technology that acts as a digital open distributed ledger and is used to record transaction data between two parties that is both verifiable and permanent. Made famous, or infamous, by Bitcoin, this article will separate the entities and focus on the technology behind blockchain, and its potential application. Blockchains are composed of a block, a timestamp, and the transaction data, as well as a cryptographic hash of the previous block that links the two by cryptography. A single blockchain exists within a network of computers and cannot be edited without changing all other blocks - by design, making them permanent and resistant to change. As such, participants can track, control, and verify transactions efficiently and securely. A good example is to picture a blockchain as a giant spreadsheet that has been shared hundreds of times across a network of computers that exist solely to update the spreadsheet regularly.
Read more ...