How best to simply explain it…think of ‘blockchain technology’ as a collection of technologies, a bit like a bag of Lego. From the bag, you can take out different bricks and
People use the term ‘blockchain technology’ to mean different things, and it can be confusing. Sometimes they are talking about distributed ledgers, i.e. a list of transactions that is shared among a number of computers, rather than being stored on a central server
The common themes seem to be a data store which:
Usually contains financial transactions.
Is replicated across a number of systems in almost real-time.
Usually exists over a peer-to-peer network.
Uses cryptography and digital signatures to prove identity, authenticity and enforce read/write access rights.
Can be written by certain participants, a wider audience.
Can be read by certain participants, a wider audience.
Has a mechanism to make it hard to change historical records, or at least make it easy to detect when someone is trying to do so.
