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@ Miloš Bém
2025-04-28 12:20:45Honestly, I didn’t think this would still be a thing in 2025, but every once in a while it pops up again:
“Bitcoin? Uh, I don’t know… but blockchain, now that could be useful! 🤌”
“Blockchain is one of the most important technologies of our time. Maybe you know it from crypto, but it’s so much more. It’s a way to store and verify data securely, transparently, and without a middleman. That’s why it’s going to revolutionize banking, healthcare, logistics, and even government!”
“Blockchain is transforming how we store, share, and verify information. Its benefits go far beyond cryptocurrencies. Understanding it today means preparing for tomorrow, because blockchain is guaranteed to play a major role in the future.”
Blockchain
When people say "blockchain," they usually mean the bitcoin database — with all its unique properties — even when they’re imagining using it elsewhere.
But here’s the thing: blockchain by itself isn’t some revolutionary breakthrough.
Stripped from bitcoin, it’s just a fancy list of records, each pointing to the previous one with a reference (typically a hash).
That's it.This idea — chaining data together — isn’t new.
It goes back to at least 1991, when Haber and Stornetta proposed it for timestamping documents.By itself, blockchain isn’t secure (you can always rewrite past records if you recompute the chain), isn’t necessarily transparent (the data can be encrypted or hidden), and doesn't magically remove the need for trust (if someone logs soccer scores into a blockchain, you still have to trust they reported the results honestly).
What actually makes bitcoin’s blockchain secure and trustworthy is the system around it — the economic incentives, the ruthless competition for block rights, and the distributed consensus mechanics.
Without those, blockchain is just another database.
How Does Bitcoin Make It Work?
To understand why, we need to zoom in a little.
Superficially, bitcoin’s blockchain looks like a simple ledger — a record of transactions grouped into blocks. A transaction means someone spent bitcoin — unlocking it and locking it up again for someone else.
But here’s the key:
Every participant can independently verify whether each transaction is valid, with no outside help and no trust required.Think of every transaction like a math equation.
Something like: x + 7 = 5, with the solution x = -2.
You don’t need anyone to tell you if it’s correct — you can check it yourself.Of course, bitcoin’s equations are far more complex.
They involve massive numbers and strange algebraic structures, where solving without the right key is practically impossible, but verifying a solution is easy.This is why only someone with the private key can authorize a transaction.
In a way, "solving" these equations is how you prove your right to spend bitcoin.
Ownership and transfers are purely a matter of internal system math — no external authority needed.
Could We Use Blockchain for Other Stuff?
Could we use a blockchain to independently verify medical records, soccer scores, or property ownership?
No.
Blockchain can't magically calculate whether you broke your arm, whether Real Madrid tied against Barcelona, or who owns a cottage in some village.
It can verify that someone owns bitcoin at a particular address, because that's just solving equations inside the system.
But anything that depends on outside facts?
Blockchain can't help you there.
Why Does Everyone Stick to One Version?
Another big question:
Why do people in bitcoin agree on the same version of history?Because of proof-of-work.
To add a new block, you have to find a specific giant number — the nonce — that, together with the block’s contents, satisfies a predefined condition.
You can't calculate the nonce directly — you have to guess, billions of times per second, until you hit the jackpot.
It takes minutes of relentless effort.An invalid transaction would invalidate the entire block, wasting all the miner’s effort.
If the block is valid, the miner earns a reward — newly minted bitcoins plus transaction fees — making the massive effort worthwhile.
And importantly, because each block is built on top of all previous ones, rewriting history would mean redoing all the proof-of-work from that point forward — an astronomically expensive and practically impossible task.
The deeper a block is buried under newer blocks, the more secure it becomes — making the past effectively immutable.And again: each node independently verifies all transactions.
Miners don't create truth; they race to package and timestamp already-valid transactions.
The winning chain is simply the one with the most provable work behind it.
Bitcoin and Blockchain: Inseparable
Bitcoin is created on the blockchain — and it exists only within the blockchain.
Ownership is defined by it.
The decentralized management of the blockchain is driven by bitcoin incentives — the pursuit of something scarce, hard-earned, and impossible to fake.No blockchain, no bitcoin.
No bitcoin, no meaningful blockchain.
Can We Just Blockchain Everything?
Alright, so what happens if we try to apply this system to something else — say, a land registry?
Properties themselves don’t "exist" on a blockchain — only claims about them can be recorded.
But who writes the claims? Random miners?
Where do they get their information?
They can’t compute it from previous blocks.
They’d have to physically go check who owns what.What if they’re lazy? Lied to? Made mistakes?
How would anyone else verify the records?
Ownership in the physical world isn’t a problem you can solve by crunching numbers in a database.Suddenly, we’re right back to needing trusted third parties — the very thing blockchain was supposed to eliminate.
And if there’s a dispute?
Say someone refuses to leave a house, claiming they've lived there forever.
Is the blockchain going to show up and evict them?Of course not.
Blockchain Without Bitcoin Is Just a Data Structure
And that’s the difference.
When blockchain is part of bitcoin’s closed system, it works because everything it cares about is internal and verifiable.
When you try to export blockchain into the real world — without bitcoin — it loses its magic.
Blockchain-like structures actually exist elsewhere too — take Git, for example.
It’s a chain of commits, each referencing the previous one by its hash.
It chains data like a blockchain does — but without the security, decentralization, or economic meaning behind bitcoin.Blockchain is just a data structure.
Bitcoin is what gives it meaning.In bitcoin, the blockchain is not just a ledger — it's a trustless system of property rights enforced by math and energy, without any central authority.