Today a blockchain technology is the holly grail of modern world and it seems everything is about blockchain. Companies start to rename themselves to include this magic word in their names and stock markets immediately rewards this companies with higher stock prices. All kind of scams popping form everywhere exploiting blockchain technology and majority of business people have permanently installed this word in their mouths.
Now it seems that term blockchain start to share its destiny with other great abstract terms. They all have one thing in common. We use them a lot but sometimes don't understand their essence.
Blockchain in old, very old, maybe as old as writing. The same as money is older than speech. When writing was invented first thing what's people write down was a list of things that others owe them and things they owe them to others. Hence, essentially a list of transactions written with stick on clay tables (blocks).
And there we have it.
A blockchain!
Now how so old stuff become so new suddenly? Why people, who don't understand blockchain properly, thing that is a "promising technology" if it so old and common thing? Don't you think this business and tech people look a little stupid talking ancient pottery stuff like a quantum physics latest invention.
It is not blockchain alone. It should be combined with some other newer inventions to become really powerful. Next big stone in this mosaic is internet as global network of nodes communicating with each other. Everybody can us internet without restrictions to send information from one global location to another location anywhere on the world.
The last and most important piece of puzzle was provided by Satoshi Nakamoto. He proposed a network of nodes maintaining exact copies of the same ledger in decentralized way, where all nodes must by consensus agree about integrity of all ledger copies. A consensus algorithm ensures that any node who try to enforce malicious data into a ledger will be excommunicated from the network and loose ability to verify consistence of its version of ledger with other nodes in the network.
This Holly Trinity: ledger, consensus and decentralization enables maintaining data in which all can trust without need of third trusted party providing proof of consistence.
That kind of network maintaining many synchronized copies of ledger can not be shout down after it is started. There is no central point of failure to be used to stop this decentralized network. The only way to stop it is to stop all nodes of network at the same time which is impossible.
Banksters and Govts talking about blockchain technology regulated from one point without decentralization is meaningless and reduce blockchain technology on its ancient state. Blockchain in its modern definition deny banks, governments and all other kinds of hierarchical organisations in society controlled from one central point. So blockchain brings the biggest disruption of our society and civilization from their very beginnings.
Let's transform the world with blockchain!