blockchain

Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.
Stewart Brand

So, one of the buzzwords lately is the headway of blockchains and cryptographic hash functions in the daily routine.

What is a blockchain?

So you take out your flashy new phone and bring up voice assistant and ask it,
define blockchain. It pops the following text.

blockchain /ˈblɒktʃeɪn/
noun a system in which a record of transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network.

Sounds a lot like technical jargon, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, it totally is. It is easier to understand when split right in the middle. So, blockchain becomes,

• block: /blɒk/ noun - a large solid piece of hard material, especially rock, stone, or wood, typically with flat surfaces on each side.
• chain: /tʃeɪn/ noun - a sequence of items of the same type forming a line.

Now, when you decompose the word you get, a chain of blocks.
It is easier now. But wait,

What does a hard solid material have to do with computers?

A block here is any logical group of things, as we describe any grouping of things, like a pack of lions, a box of matches etc. So, block is a group of things (logical things).

What are these blocks composed of?

As a matter of fact anything. A block can be a group of anything, a list of books that someone has read, a list of accounts that someone owns, even the list of movies that you’ve watched. It can be anything as long as it is a regular activity that you do quite often. When you break it down to the barest minimum it is a list of records. A list of records with a beginning and no end in sight.
The perfect example would be a list of transactions between people. As long as people exist, people need commodities and they exchange goods between them. So, a blockchain is a perfect fit for this situation.