Читать книгу Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies - Peter Kent - Страница 21

The blockchain is a database; it stores information in a structured form. You can use blockchains for many different purposes: for example, for property rights registries (who owns this piece of land, and how did they come to own it?), or supply chain tracking (where did your wine or fish come from, and how did it get to you?). Blockchains can store any kind of data. In the case of cryptocurrencies, though, blockchains store transaction data: who owns what amount of cryptocurrency, who gave it to them, and who have they given it to (how have they spent it)?

Of course, blockchains have several special characteristics. Firstly, they are networked. There is a Bitcoin network, a Litecoin network, an Ethereum network, just like there’s an email network or a World Wide Web network.

Bitcoin, for example, is a network of thousands of nodes or servers, spread across the entire planet.

These nodes each contain a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain, and they communicate with each other and stay in sync. They use a system of consensus to come to an agreement regarding what the current, valid blockchain database looks like. That is, they all contain a matching copy of the blockchain.