A Bluffer’s Guide to Ethereum: Some Answers to Questions … Go Learn More

Blockchain — or as some would say ‘distributed ledgers’ — is one of those completely misunderstood areas of technology, and where we often end up with people saying it is the best thing since sliced bread, while others saying that it is a disaster. To say that Bitcoin is representive of a modern blockchain network is like comparing a Ford Model T to a Tesla car. For this, I quote a famous stanza from John Godrey Saxe:

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,
who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),
that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,
each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!
So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,
tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,
and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!
-- John Godfrey Saxe

And I quote: “Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!”. To me, a blockchain creates a most trustworthy world of digital signing, and which overcomes many of the flaws in methods of digital trust. I see the wonderment of five decades of cryptography research into public key, and the beauty of Merkle…