Blockchain — A Short and Simple Explanation in Pictures
6 min readJan 5, 2019
A Blockchain is a method of storing data. Data is stored in blocks which are linked to the previous block.
But what does a “Block” look like?
Each “block” contains
- Data of transactions
- A unique fingerprint for all the data in the block called a hash
- A hash of the previous block’s data
What does each of these items mean?
Data in the block usually consists of transactions. A block can contain hundreds of transactions. Alice sending Bob $100 is an example of a transaction in a block
A hash is a unique combination of letters and numbers. It is like a fingerprint for the data in a block and it is always unique to every block in the Blockchain. When the data in a block changes, the hash will also change.