Chapter 2
Digging into Blockchain Technology
IN THIS CHAPTER
Surveying the blockchain ecosystem
Examining types of blockchains
Solving business problems with blockchain features
Aligning blockchain with business use cases
Blockchain is one of the most discussed technologies of our time. It's commonly described in many ways, including “a disruptive and game-changing technology,” a “distributed ledger of transactions,” and a “new kind of database.” Although these short descriptions are different, there's some truth in each one, but none captures what blockchain is all about. In short, blockchain technology is a radical new approach to delivering trust and confidence over exchanges of value without relying on a trusted third party.
Wow, that’s a mouthful! You’ve probably heard that blockchain supports transactions between participants in a trustless environment. Most of the time, when you transfer something of value from one party to another, you use a trusted third party (someone you trust to handle the money or whatever you're transferring). For example, when you pay a vendor, you ...
Get Blockchain Data Analytics For Dummies now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
