Block chain simplified

Blockchain technology is commonly associated with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Some people think blockchain could end up transforming a number of important industries, from health care to politics.

blockchain beyond bitcoin

This article is part of our series “Blockchain beyond Bitcoin“. Bitcoin is the beginning, but it’s far from the end. To help you wrap your head around why, we’re taking a deep dive into the world of blockchain. In this series, we’ll go beyond cryptocurrency and hone in on blockchain applications that could reshape medical records, voting machines, video games, and more.

Whether you’re simply looking to invest in Bitcoin, trade some Ethereum, or are just intrigued about what the heck blockchain actually is, you’ve come to the right place.

Blockchain isn’t just for Bitcoin
While blockchain technology isn’t simple when you dig into the nitty-gritty, the basic idea isn’t too hard to follow. It’s effectively a database that’s validated by a wider community, rather than a central authority. It’s a collection of records that a crowd oversees and maintains, rather than relying on a single entity, like a bank or government, which most likely hosts data on a particular server. Of course, a physical database kept on paper could never be managed by tens of thousands of peers. That’s where computers, and the internet, come in.

Each “block” represents a number of transactional records, and the “chain” component links them all together with a hash function. As records are created, they are confirmed by a distributed network of computers and paired up with the previous entry in the chain, thereby creating a chain of blocks, or a blockchain