If you’ve been online or around anyone who has been online in the past 10 years, you’ve undoubtedly heard of cryptocurrency and might have heard of the technology that enables its existence – blockchain.

Before we get into crypto though, it helps to have an understanding of blockchain.

When you have that, you’ll realise how much MORE than crypto can be supported, especially aspects of life that are *very* relevant to us in the Caribbean, like voting and land ownership.  😲

Keeping the technical ‘heights’ to a minimum

Blockchain is a series of connected data records, called ‘blocks’,

They are decentralised – kept on hundreds of thousands of computers across the world and regularly updated.

Each block has a storage capacity. Once filled, a new block is created and added (or “chained”) onto the previous block, in chronological order, creating a Blockchain.

Once a block is filled, it’s time-stamped and given its own unique code, called a hash, that includes the hash of the previous block. Because these hashes are mathematically generated and each block is linked together and housed across an ever-growing number of computers, it makes it *REALLY* difficult to change the block’s information after the fact.

To alter any record, you’d have to change that record’s hash on aaaaaalllll, or at LEAST the majority, of the other computers in the network.

Suffice it to say: bobol (i.e. corruption/bribery/cheating the system) REAL HARD to get away with.

As a result of this transparency, security and decentralisation, Blockchain has traditionally been used for e-commerce, financial data, currency and digital assets such as NFTs (article coming soon!) but is increasingly being explored, internationally, for the housing of other valuable info such as landowner, national ID and voting records.

Which means T&T should officially jump on board in about 15 years.

So, like it’s 5pm on the Beetham and yuh just get bless up from a Bobo – that’s blockchain in a nutshell. Tune in next week as we look at the many uses of Blockchain!