What is the blockchain?

As part of our understanding Bitcoin series, one of the fundamental parts of the cryptocurrency is the blockchain that sits beneath it. This powerful new system is set to revolutionise the world as we know it, but what is it?

A blockchain is, very simply, an online record of transactions. They could be transactions for money, the movement of goods, or exchanges in information.

Diving deeper into what blockchain is

Taking the above definition and building on it, the blockchain is a growing set of records, bunched together into ‘blocks’ which are linked together using cryptography. (If any of these terms throw you, that’s totally fine. Our site, Aysha.io has a built in glossary for these technical terms.)

Why everyone is so excited about blockchain

There are a number of key factors that make blockchain so exciting.

It’s decentralised:

The internet today is mostly centralised . What does that mean? The vast majority of the services and sites you visit store and keep their data in a database. Your bank, Netflix, Google, you name it, they all operate a centralised system.

Think of is as going to buy sweets from a sweetshop. That shop controls the flow of the sweets. It acts as a gatekeeper and can decide how many sweets to release to you as it wants.

In a decentralised world, you can go to your neighbour for sweets, or a friend, or anyone for that matter. There’s no longer one point of control for you sweety fix.

Why is that a good thing?

In the present centralised system there are a number of challenges.

🔓Security. If these centralised databases get hacked into, they can expose all the data at once. We’ve seen that happen more and more recently.

💵 Cost. Building centralised systems is often expensive as a company needs to provide all the digital capacity to make a system run smoothly.

📊Your data. In these centralised systems, your data is not your own, and is often monetised by the networks you give that data too.

🌫️Transparency. How information gets used, by whom and for what is a bit of a grey area today. The decentralised internet can change that!

Learn more?

There’s so much more to learn about the technology that powers Bitcoin. Not to mention its applications, limitations and how its being used out in the real world.

The Aysha platform is designed to help you get to grips with this ground breaking technology through super simple, easy-to-read guides.

Head to LitePaper to discover more.