What is the Blockchain?

The blockchain consists of block nodes which contain information and link together. Multidirectional data collected on the Blockchain builds towards an unanimous database. In other words, the Blockchain is the perfect database.

A typical database is usually laid out on a spreadsheet with 10,000 rows and 50 columns with multiple spreadsheets linked together. It has been designed so that anyone with access to the spreadsheet could manipulate the data and, also, the overall structure tends to include missing data and has incompatible datapoints. The user’s ability to trust the integrity of the data still remains to be low and the user’s doubtfulness causes double-work in validating endpoints.

The methods to verify information usually comes from multiple data sources creating data redundancy and the need to maintain data redundancy.

[The] Blockchain removes the need for data redundancy by being an entirely different kind of database. A blockchain is just like that stack-of-spreadsheets database, except that blocks, which are like single spreadsheets in the larger stack, are all attached with a “chain.” Chains can be though of as cryptographic locks that keep those blocks of data locked in place forever. (BlockChain Wars. The Future of Big Tech Monopolies and the Blockchain Internet. Evan McFarland).

When entering new pieces of information into the Blockchain, the spreadsheets are the blocks. How the Data is being appended into the “Master Spreadsheet” is through networks and machines.

The reason why it is the perfect database is because two significant things are happening. The blocks (remember the spreadsheets are the blocks) are posted as free-from-error. There are no typos, no errors, no subjectivity. Secondly, the block and the data, can not be deleted, duplicated, or disputed on its blockchain. These features are what gives the blockchain its traits for: Transparency and Decentralization.

You might have perked your ears up when I said mentioned that blocks are appended by networks and machines. I will try to explain this further, remember the term peer2peer (p2p) networking were hot keywords when Napster and Limewire were around? The Web3 technology will basically consist of p2p protocols with cryptography and this is how transparency across the internet will widen.

That is the gist of what a Blockchain is, it is basically a database with total faithful representation.