American Consequences - November 2019

“B lockchain” is one of those words that has the power to confuse even the smartest people. And the media hasn’t been at all helpful explaining how this technology actually works. For starters, blockchain is the technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The Bitcoin blockchain allows us to transfer bitcoin person to person (or “peer-to-peer”) without any intermediary. When I transfer

U.S. dollars to you, we either have to do it in person – with me handing you cash – or through the banking system, which involves me telling my bank to send money to your bank account. (Bitcoin with a capital “B” refers to the blockchain, whereas bitcoin with a lowercase “b” refers to the cryptocurrency.) But how does this actually work? A good analogy is to think of the Bitcoin

50

November 2019

Made with FlippingBook HTML5