Web3 Series: The Story of Blockchain
The list of blockchain’s characteristics grew longer, but he never got around to directly answering the central question: What exactly is it and what makes it special? The presentation dragged on for several sad minutes, culminating in a whimper as an attendee broke the awkward pause, following a solicitation for questions, with a halfhearted, “Thank you so much. This was very helpful.” She was being kind. Here is the story this feeble expert should have told.From the early days of the internet, visionaries imagined the possibility of peer-to-peer digital payments in which one individual can pay another directly without the need of a third party to facilitate the transaction. In the physical world, this is simple enough. I want to pay you a hundred dollars. I take a hundred-dollar bill and hand it to you. Now you have it and I don’t. Voila. But a digital implementation of this system is not as simple. Digital currency is represented by files that can be copied and modified, which presents the possibility that an unscrupulous actor might duplicate the currency and spend it twice. This is the double spending problem. The only solution to facilitate online payments was to have a third party — like a bank — manage a payments ledger to ensure that currency was spent only once. Though researchers tried various approaches to address double spending, none could eliminate the need for an intermediary to keep the system honest by clearing transactions against a central ledger.
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