The Blockchain: A Gentle Four Page Introduction
This is an incremental educational resource for those seeking a basic understanding of blockchain.
The paper provides a brief introduction to blockchain technology, explaining it as a distributed database that securely maintains a tamper-resistant chronological chain of records, and highlights its potential to revolutionize record-keeping principles.
Blockchain is a distributed database that keeps a chronologically-growing list (chain) of records (blocks) secure from tampering and revision. While computerisation has changed the nature of a ledger from clay tables in the old days to digital records in modern days, blockchain technology is the first true innovation in record keeping that could potentially revolutionise the basic principles of information keeping. In this note, we provide a brief self-contained introduction to how the blockchain works.