The Blockchain
An Introduction to Blockchain, Bitcoin ₿, and related concepts
Published in
12 min readJan 12, 2021
Bitcoin crossed $40,000 USD for the first time recently, so it’s again in the news. Bitcoin is just the most-known cryptocurrency. It is one application using a blockchain. In this article, I will walk you through some core concepts of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. This article is written for beginners and a bit fluffy in some areas. There will be follow-up articles to address that. Let’s start!
The Idea of a Ledger
Suppose we lived in a simpler world without credits and with only one bank. Everybody just owns a non-negative amount of money. The bank keeps track of transactions. Let’s say we have three students living in the same shared apartment: Anna, Bob, and Charlie. They all put $100 USD in their bank account:
Date | Sender | Receiver | Amount
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2021-01-01 06:00 | (Deposit) | Anna | $100
2021-01-01 06:01 | (Deposit) | Bob | $100
2021-01-01 06:08 | (Deposit) | Charlie | $100
