I got bored with technology about a decade ago, I guess, after living in the absolute core of it for more than two decades. I used to devour new technologies, and I was the one that many people turned to for advice about how to solve particular tech problems, or to find out if there was a tech solution to a problem. But I just got tired. Exhausted. So I ignored technology, and learning new tech, for a long time.
So it was natural for me to play ostrich for the entire Bitcoin/Etherium/Dogecoin/Blockchain conversation.
Until yesterday.
This is the page that changed my mind. They key thing for me, is that this page is not one person describing the technology in their own way for their own audience. It is a number of different people, with different goals and ideas, all describing what blockchain technologies do for them.
The sheer range of applications for this particular method of calculation is really astounding.
And I am on board.
CONTEXT
When I first started in computers, if two machines wanted to talk to each other, they had to be physically connected to each other. Either by a serial cable, a modem (another type of serial connection), or by putting files on a floppy disk and moving it between the two machines.
Basic networking - token ring, AppleTalk, etc. - required the two computers to know each other's specific address (done by polling the network and the destination computer piping up, "That's Me!"), to be able to talk to each other.
Then brain-breaking technology came along (TCP/IP) that would allow ANY machine on the network to be an intermediary, and eliminating the need for two machines to be directly connected to each other. Messages were simply spewed out on the network, and any machine that heard it passed it along, until - via chaos theory, or simple mathematics - the message arrived at the destination computer. The path the message took was not pre-defined. The next message may take a completely different path. Messages could arrive out of sequence, and the communication was still legible. It was baffling that this technology actually WORKED!
TODAY
Now we have this new technology, blockchain. The concept - like TCP/IP networking - is pretty simple, but the variety of applications for that concept are still being understood. Currency. Contracts. Voting. Scientific research.
Basically anything that needs to be verified, can be verified via a blockchain.
Today, few people actually understand how the internet works. But they use it every time they send an SMS message from their phone, get money out of an ATM, send an email, or Google something.
Blockchain is the next technology that will underpin everything we do, and we won't need to understand it, to use it.
But those that do use it, will be in a much stronger position than those who don't. I suggest you read the page I linked to, and get familiar with it.
Holy buzzwords, batman. that page you linked is not designed to improve comprehension. It is also 500 words longer than the Bitcoin Whitepaper which is eight pages of plain English and eminently readable.
SIMPLY PUT
"the blockchain" is nothing more than a fancy way to say "distributed ledger." "distributed ledger" is nothing more than a fancy way to say "shit-tons of copies of a list." All these fancy-pants "visionaries" and "moguls" are eager for you to forget that the root word of "bitcoin" is "bittorrent" because then 41 patents at BofA looks irresponsible, rather than forward-looking. But fundamentally, it's BitTorrent.
And it works like this:
- There's a list. It has a bunch of trades on it. Joe sends bob 1. Sue sends mary 1. Mary sends ted 2.
- Everybody who's interested has a copy of that list. All new transactions are shouted through a megaphone to everyone with the list.
- The solution to a Sudoku is also shouted. And while everyone writes down all their transactions, they also try to solve the sudoku.
- First person to solve the Sudoku gets money. When money is awarded, everybody compares lists. People whose lists all match get to keep solving sudoku for money. Which means if your list doesn't match, you change your list so you can keep playing sudoku. If you insist that your list is better, they kick you out of the room so you can play Sudoku by yourself (or with whoever joins you).
It's been said that Bitcoin is a calculator and Ethereum is an iPhone. That's one way to demonstrate that "blockchain technology" can be used for more than just numbers. In the case of Ethereum, it's useful for programs. Crypto kitties are that, basically - it's a genetic algorithm running on the blockchain. For some reason, when bittorrent came out, everyone hated it but now that it's "the blockchain" everyone's all super-stoked.
Probably because positive money rather than negative money.
Same tech.