What is blockchain?
What is blockchain? Blockchain is a secure database shared across a network of participants, where up-to-date information is available to all participants at the same time. Blockchain is one of the major tech stories of the past decade. But beneath the surface chatter there’s not always a deep, clear understanding of what blockchain is, how it works, or what it’s for. Despite its reputation for impenetrability, the basic idea behind blockchain is pretty simple. And it has major potential to change industries from the bottom up. A blockchain has three central attributes: First, a blockchain database must be cryptographically secure. That means you need two cryptographic keys to access or add data on the database: a public key, which is basically the address in the database, and the private key, which is an individualized key that must be authenticated by the network. Next, a blockchain is a digital log or database of transactions, meaning it happens ful...