Comment by baq
2 years ago
Blockchain is just a slow database. What you want is a peer to peer system which actually has peers instead of a couple super nodes and ephemeral drive-by clients.
2 years ago
Blockchain is just a slow database. What you want is a peer to peer system which actually has peers instead of a couple super nodes and ephemeral drive-by clients.
"Just" a slow database that allows coordinated writes in a decentralized way, effectively solving the Byzantine Generals problem. That's what made Bitcoin a novel idea.
How does it solve the Byzantine generals problem?
By proof-of-work consensus. This makes attacks costly, basically they have to spend more resources than half the network, hence the name "51% attack".
The Bitcoin whitepaper [0] is a very accesible read, but the revolutionary ideas are not immediately obvious.
[0] https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf