Record-keeping is and always has been the basis of economic transaction; without it there would be no trust, no accountability, and no proof that any exchange ever occurred. And as the transactions we make every day evolve, becoming less physically tangible and creating more uncertainty over terms and all parties’ fidelity to them, we need a technology that can keep up.

Blockchain is revolutionary in that it doesn’t rely on any one person to write down the terms of a transaction, but rather on a series of computers which, all using the same algorithm, come to a consensus on what actually happened and adjust the ledger accordingly. There is no room for human error or accounting mistake in these machines; nor is there the possibility of foul play on the part of a scheming bookkeeper. Many machines work together as a disinterested, fair system, and whatever they decide goes into a “block” where the information on the transaction is stored.

Blockchain is also extremely secure thanks to the manner in which records are kept and the nature of the chain. Each block has its own unique identifier called a “hash” which is determined by the contents inside the block. Changing the contents of one block changes its hash, but that hash still lives in other blocks in the chain. So you would need to change the next block, which then changes its hash, and so on. Changing one block then requires you change every other block in the chain, which requires a massive amount of computing power, making the cost of editing a block much higher than the potential reward.