Blockchain technology offers
society a new capability: sharing business records whose tamper
resistance can be trusted more, and for a longer duration, than any of
the participants trust each other. This capability expands the reach of
useful constructs that were previously limited by trust boundaries, such
as digital money, smart contracting, and many others.
The
attached animation summarizes how they work. New user data is
collected, and then a "fingerprint" (cryptographic hash) is created to
summarize the collection. That fingerprint is then combined with a
fingerprint of the prior block to create a new block. The resulting
chain of blocks creates a tamper-resistant structure where no historical
record can be changed without disrupting every subsequent block hash,
thus consolidating the problem of tamper resistance down to the problem
of securing the most recent block.
This
animation does not explain how the most recent block is secured.
Traditionally, this employs "Proof of Work", wasting over $2 billion
annually in electricity. Some chains are attempting Proof of Stake.
Some just use old-fashioned trusted custodianship in disguise, defeating
the very point of blockchains. But there is a better way!
