What is the Block Chain

Just as Email has allowed us to send messages across the world instantly, securely, and for free, the Block Chain will allow you to transfer title deeds, create long standing contracts, create partnerships, trade stocks, write a will, buy and sell physical assets, without any possibility of manipulation by anyone.

Since the beginnings of Bitcoin, much work has been done to authenticate payment transfers automatically in real-time, so that users are able to benefit from this technology in the real world.

Many have heard about digital currencies making the headlines, and in particular, Bitcoin: a currency started in 2009 as a practical experiment of a white paper published online by an anonymous cryptography expert under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

Nakamoto’s experiment proved to be a success due to a very simple idea: he solved the Beyzantine General’s Problem. In other words, how can one send value to another person online without the need for a trusted third-party, which ensures that the amount spent is not going to be spent twice. A job usually requiring an intermediary record keeper.

What has not been very clear to many Bitcoin fans is that a part of the technology has the potential to change how trading and commerce work in general. And this part is called the Block Chain.

The Block Chain is essentially a ledger, or record, of all transactions that have ever taken place in the Bitcoin economy. This ledger is owned by everyone, but controlled by no one.This can be imagined as a gigantic global spreadsheet that everyone has access to and updates, in order to confirm that each transaction is unique.

It is THIS, that a lot of Bitcoin’s programmers are trying to innovate upon to find ways to apply it beyond currencies and value transfer.