Crypto & Us : Bite 2 (Blockchain)
Think of Blockchain as a public ledger where all the cryptocurrency transactions that you do are recorded. These are recorded on blocks and these blocks are linked or ‘chained’ together forming a string of blocks. Now every transaction needs to be verified, like they are done in banks, except that here, these are verified by a network of P2P computers spread globally, also knows as ‘Miners’. Think of them as auditors who keep a check on the legitimacy of these transactions and in return are rewarded for the same in crypto. In this way, the whole process is ratified without any involvement of banks or financial institutions. Pretty cool right? How safe is blockchain, you may ask? Since the transactions on a block are verified from multiple networks or ‘nodes’ , even if the hacker tries to alter one transaction, he would need to hack at least half of the distributed nodes and on top of that, if he still manages to do that, since the blocks are independent, he would not be able to go past one block. So the net result is a publicly secured network with almost no room for error. Still need a reason to invest? The most effective and perhaps a life changing use case for blockchain technology is in the countries where banking facilities do not reach all the citizens or where inflation rates have soared to such an extent that their government currencies are worthless. Zimbabwe, Argentina and Lebanon are just a few examples from the long list of countries who are forced to switch to crypto and blockchain to survive. Transactions on blockchain are superior to the current system that we have seen throughout our lives. Be it in terms of security, privacy or efficiency, blockchain technology is a tremendous alternative for people who are looking to move to a more secure platform for people who want to have control on their money and privacy

PS: El Salvador, a small country in Central America took the historic decision to make Bitcoin a legal tender in the country which resulted in the whole country getting instant access to financial services, dramatically reducing the remittance fees and transaction time as compared to the earlier wire transfers. If that was not enough, the citizens will not be paying any tax on the capital gains, that means, as and when the value of bitcoin rises, the citizens benefit from the gains just buy holding bitcoin in their wallets.
['Aditya Kohli']
['Decentralized Finance', 'Financial Freedom', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain Technology']