Web3 Series: The Story of Blockchain
Why it’s important to understand this growing phenomenon that is starting to upend the business world.
Recently, I sat through a Blockchain 101 presentation from a self-styled expert who promised to make sense of the convoluted topic.
“Blockchain is immutable,” he told the group as I discreetly browsed dictionary.com.
“It’s decentralized.” (Okay?)
“It’s a distributed ledger.” (Meaning what, exactly?)
“You can’t hack it.” (Why not?)
The list of blockchain’s characteristics grew longer, but he never got around to directly answering the central question: What exactly is it and what makes it special?
The presentation dragged on for several sad minutes, culminating in a whimper as an attendee broke the awkward pause, following a solicitation for questions, with a halfhearted, “Thank you so much. This was very helpful.”
She was being kind. Here is the story this feeble expert should have told.
The double spending problem
From the early days of the internet, visionaries imagined the possibility of peer-to-peer digital payments in which one individual can pay another directly…
