Stephen Williams

Without blockchain, bitcoins would have no value

Every node is capable of supporting the chain even if some of the nodes around it fail.

Blockchains offer transparency while at the same time they offer a high degree of privacy. How is this possible?

The identity of a person (or machine) using a blockchain is hidden behind a string of cod

might be usurped by corporations that control future innovations and keep them private. Some of the methods for securing blocks use vast amounts of electricity, and that won’t be ten‍

most business in the world is conducted with great secrecy. Blockchain tech offers the possibility of radical transparency, so that all participants in the chain (everyone in the world, if desired) can have access to every transaction on the chain.

Blockchain tech offers the possibility of radical transparency, so that all participants in the chain (everyone in the world, if desired) can have access to every transaction on the chain.

There are both private blockchains and public blockchains, and they operate pretty much as they sound. Purists and crytpoanarchists and other blockchain fanatics generally believe that private chains violate the principles of open transparency that can make blockchain so radical. Public chains are like public schools—open to everyone. Private chains are like private eating clubs at Ivy League universities—you must be invited to join. Private chains are mainly used for what businesspeople call “enterprise.”

The great beauty of public blockchains is that they are transparent, and open to anyone. That means that all the transactions are visible, even though the identity of the participants might be hidden behind the cryptographic code of the public keys that let them initiate and receive transactions. It all depends on what the node wants to release about itself.

As blockchain is adopted by more and more corporations

Capitalism finds a new path. Melanie Swan says we’ll all be cryptocitizens using blockchain to run our worlds. We will turn to ourselves, and the other nodes on blockchains, for the answers, rather than to the gatekeepers that now dominate our lives.

The individual nodes might elect other nodes to represent them in making decisions, or they might vote, digitally, on various propositions before them, such as what dividends to pay or investments to make.