Blockchain technology is all the rage these days in the technology world. Just in case you have never heard of this before, Blockchain is what powers the crypto-currencies, like the Bitcoin. While Bitcoin has been a hotly debated topic around the globe, its widespread popularity has largely been because of its involvement with money. But in case you think that Bitcoin is in itself a revolutionary technology, you are wrong on many levels. Primarily because it is not Bitcoin that translates into a ‘path-breaking technology’ but Blockchain. In essence, Bitcoin is a very small, but an important application of the Blockchain technology. Bitcoin IS NOT Blockchain.
So what is Blockchain? In very simple terms, blockchain is a ‘distributed ledger’ or a ‘distributed record’ that is used to keep a track of information transfer between points. Consider a monetary transaction between person A and person B. In the banking system prevalent today, it is the bank that keeps the transaction record between the two people. Now consider that an entire network of people has a record, containing all the transaction history amongst these two people (in an encrypted form of course). This shows the ‘distributed’ element of the blockchain.
Now, this is just an overview of how the Blockchain technology works and its advantages. Let us dive a little more into the depth of this technology’s working. For this, let us first know how it all started.