Читать книгу Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies - Peter Kent - Страница 25

Well, okay, the blockchain doesn’t actually store a balance for each address. Nowhere in the blockchain does it state how much of the cryptocurrency any particular owner owns or how much any particular address has associated with it. Rather, you can use a blockchain explorer to follow all your transactions, incoming and outgoing, and the blockchain explorer can figure out your balance based on those transactions.

In the context of cryptocurrency, the blockchain is a digital ledger recording cryptocurrency you send to others, and cryptocurrency you receive from others.

Think of it this way. Say that you’re a little compulsive and like to keep a record of the cash in your pocket. You carry a notepad, to record every time you put money into your pocket and every time you spend it, and you calculate the current balance. That notepad is a kind of transaction ledger, right?

Cryptocurrency is very similar to this ledger of cash transactions … except there’s no pocket. The blockchain is the ledger; it stores a record of every transaction (when you first purchased or were sent the cryptocurrency, when you spent it or sold it, and the balance you own).

But there’s no pocket and no cryptocurrency sitting in storage somewhere. The blockchain is simply a series of “mythical” (or virtual) transactions stored in the ledger. No currency is being physically transferred; we simply update the record to state that currency has been transferred.

The ledger says you own cryptocurrency, so everyone can validate and accept that you own it. And remember, that ledger can’t be edited after being solidified into the chain — it can’t be hacked. (See the preceding section for more on this topic.) So if the ledger says you own, say, half a Bitcoin, then you absolutely do, and you can sell that half Bitcoin to someone else by modifying the ledger to say that they own it!

But what about the wallet? The wallet must store money, right? No, cryptocurrency wallets do not store cryptocurrency. They store private keys, public keys, and addresses. Private keys are the most important because they control the addresses with which your cryptocurrency is associated in the blockchain.