https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYMxFsdHikc

What is blockchain technology?

The easiest way to explain it is by saying that:

Blockchain is a database that is not managed by a single company.

Instead, it's managed by multiple people, making it a peer-to-peer database and thereby, making it decentralized.

For instance, crypto is a digital asset or computer generated file - anyone can make them and replicate it. Blockchain provides the digital record of these assets and verifies whether the sender actually has the asset for the transaction and also ensures once the asset is sent then it can't be sent again.

A great analogy would be if all of your friends had all the same receipts of what you bought. And you wanted to sell a hat you bought to another person. All of your friends could verify to the buyer that you actually do have the hat and the buyer can trust the transaction will go through as promised.

Essentially the blockchain is a way to send and share data in an encrypted way which has checks and balances across-the-board to make sure that the true data is being sent and received.

There are public blockchains which I'm sure you probably heard of like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Cardano and many others. They are also private blockchains like many companies are using blockchain tech internally to safeguard information from potential hackers or anyone really trying to manipulate the data.

What's the difference between what we use now and Blockchain?

Like we said, normally all data that we use every day is held by one single person or company. And there is a lot of power in that. For instance, Google has amassed so much data about each person who uses their service that there is no checks and balances for how that data moves, who is looking at that data, where that data is, and whether the data is being changed.

It also allows for the opportunity for hackers to get access to this information because all that information is being held in a centralized place. So there is less security.

Blockchain transactions operate on a peer-to-peer network which allows users to break down information into different pieces (or blocks) and those blocks are shared to everyone. It encrypts that information in such a way that it creates an anonymous network.

Bottom line - the community owns the information and there is only a few ways to determine who’s data is whose without their wallet address or in other words their encryption key.

With complex security parameters and network systems, blockchain technology makes it fundamentally impossible to corrupt or change the transaction records.

Right now, the most recognized use of blockchain is with finance or with cryptocurrency but we are seeing more companies use to protect their information. We are even seeing hospitals use blockchain to protect patient data.

Hundreds of millions of global transactions happen everyday without all the red tape and fear of data corruption because of blockchain.

Now, time for a reality check…it has to be said it’s not all rainbows, unicorns and bitcoin bounties. With great power, comes great responsibility. And there are those who are taking advantage of the anonymous power of blockchain for some unsavory and less than desirable transactions (read:iilegal) and there are those who have used blockchain to defraud people and institutions for their green. We can’t ignore the potential for misuse of this peer-to-peer network.

That is why it’s really important to protect yourself online and encrypt your wallets, passwords and always have a hard copy of any keys, phrases and passwords you use to access your digital accounts.