Feb 23 2024

Explaining blockchain to a child

I once asked to explain what blockchain is to a non techniqual person. Which was a bad experince to introduce blockchain for who never here it before. By observing it now I know each parts can be expalined separately and put togther later and make a total sense. But hey, wouldn't that will be interesting anyway?

#1. Hashes

The first building block of any blockchain application.

In simple words it's a unique identifier for any given input. To explain it further the input Abraham can be converted to a hash and result is

78a8ebdcc101b021d08b410197029114214ab428f9357635143913c20395f240

As you quickly reliaze it's a combination of words and number that are too long to remmember. But everytime you type Abraham the result is the same. In other case if I type abraham changing the first latter to lowercase it will give me completely different result.

41ff8b1f8874e7763d421867504d7a8157a3543e75b0427b4bf8c6b5dd6b4813

#2. Block

You can think of block as container of information. That include transactions and some metadata.

Here are some of the data it contains

about `Abraham + 22 + Male` we will do here the same thing also to create a unique hash to this block. Block Number + Merkel Rooot + Prevous Hash previous hash: A hash of the previous block. Simple as that.

• Block Number: An indicator which block it's transactions: Contain all bitcoin transaction.
• Merkel Root: A hash to describe the transactions.
• Previous Hash: I will explain this later.
• hash: You remmember the example I told you
• hash: You remmember the example I told you

Yep, that's what block it's. Just a container for information. But it goes deper if will look in to transactions.