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What Is Blockchain - A book analogy

By Japhet Kapambwe Mesa

I am going to attempt to describe what a blockchain using a book analogy. Before we get to it let us take a look at some definitions.

"A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions. Constantly growing as completed blocks (the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in chronological order, it allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central record keeping." - investopedia.com 

"The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value." - Don & Alex Tapscott, authors of Blockchain Revolution (2016).

Let us throw in one last definition shall we? 

"Blockchain is a consensus based secure decentralized database which stores information immutably over a peer-to-peer (P2P) network" - Toshendra Sharma.

So it is clear that a blockchain is a decentralized ledger tracking digital assets on a P2P network. A digital asset can be anything from a digital coin, a music file or a picture. It can also be used to track physical items by way of a tracking number which is uploaded on to the blockchain. All participating members (computer nodes)  in a blockchain keep an updated copy of the ledger. Additionally, the blockchain is a consensus-based database. This means that changes can only be appended to a ledger when a pre-set number of nodes agree. The two attributes above give the blockchain the property of being incorruptible (or hack proof) because changes cannot be made without being noticed and agreed upon.

THE BOOK ANALOGY

Image: Image Mama
Let us imagine a traditional ledger book where every page is sequentially numbered. The book will represent the blockchain, it will contain all the transactions of the particular business. The pages in the book will represent a block and an entry in the lines of the pages will be the transactions.

Now, because the pages are sequentially numbered it is easy to arrange the pages/blocks and identify suspicious activity. We can easily detect if a page/block has been removed or deleted.

Similarly, because it is sequentially numbered it is impossible for a ledger to be tampered with without being noticed. Furthermore, because it is consensus based, a change in the ledger can only be appended if the majority of participants agree.

So there we have it. I hope the book analogy has set premise for the reader to begin to understand what a blockchain is.

Japhet Kapambwe Mesa is a founding member of Crypto Tamanga community which is a community of crypto currency and blockchain enthusiasts in Zambia. 

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