It is as though the cliché “written in stone" was made for blockchain technology because metaphorically that is exactly what happens on the blockchain. Inside every block is a complete history of everything that has ever happened on that chain, as well as the rules that all of the blocks follow. Any cryptocurrency’s blockchain is the master ledger that records and stores all prior transactions and activity, validating ownership of all units of the currency at any given point in time.
Since anyone can be a miner, this keeps things decentralized because blockchain isn’t owned by any one person or party, and nobody can control the actions that the network takes unless it is a code upgrade (hard fork) by a large amount of miners working together. Taking the control away from the government and large corporations is the main core value that decentralization provides, which if I'm not mistaken was the original idea behind the Internet.
Ironically the problem that blockchain solves goes back thousands of years to the Byzantine generals problem. If you’d like to learn more about this topic and others check out Crypto.IQ and use code "jsherm" to get a super discount. You can also watch an episode in our web series "Mastering Cryptocurrency" right here featuring Bitcoin Legend Charlie Shrem and Serial Entrepreneur Jason Sherman: