So why is the blockchain so revolutionary?
Start with “people can’t be trusted.”
Assume you are completely paranoid —if-they-can-screw-me-over-they-will.” Imagine you are blindingly intelligent. Invent a data storage technology that’s invulnerable, like Achilles with a pair of steel boots. Call yourself Satoshi Nakamoto. Call your invention a blockchain.
So who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Sorry. I cannot tell you that. If I did someone would kill me.
OK. That’s annoying. So what is a blockchain?
Let’s start with the fact that databases usually store data in blocks of data. They’ve done that since God was a boy. They wait until they have lots of records to write — a block full — then they write them all in one block. It is more efficient that way.
So what is the ‘chain’ part?
When you store records in a blockchain, it chains all the blocks together without you even having to ask.
So what? Why would I care?
You wouldn’t if you didn’t care about security. You see the blockchain chains the blocks together with a hash and that makes them secure.
I have no idea what a hash is. You lost me right there.
It’s mathematical. I will not give you the detail. You’ll come after me with a baseball bat if I introduce any more terms and start writing math formulae. Nevertheless, it is possible to take a big block of data and “hash it.” and it gives you an impossible-to-forge fingerprint of the data. Every time a new block is created, it is stored with the hash of the previous block. It means that the previous block is locked, kinda frozen in time and order.
OK, so a supremely boring mathematical fingerprint locks the order of the blocks. Why should I care?
It means that no-one can ever forge a block. The values are locked in an impenetrable steel vault that is every bit as strong as the boots Achilles should have worn if he was going to survive the Trojan War.
Read the rest of this exchange on Algebraix CSO Robin Bloor's blog.