I’m way late to the Bitcoin party, but think the notion of applications built from blockchain concepts will be a Big Deal (™). Andreas Antonopoulos’ new book Mastering Bitcoin is getting me up to speed. Here’s a taste:
One way to think about the blockchain is like layers in a geological formation, or a glacier core sample. The surface layers may change with the seasons, or even be blown away before they have time to settle. But once you go a few inches deep, geological layers become more and more stable. By the time you look a few hundred feet down, you are looking at a snapshot of the past that has remained undisturbed for millennia or millions of years. In the blockchain, the most recent few blocks may be revised if there is a chain recalculation due to a fork. The top six blocks are like a few inches of topsoil. But once you go deeper into the blockchain, beyond six blocks, blocks are less and less likely to change. After 100 blocks back, there is so much stability that the “coinbase” transaction, the transaction containing newly mined bitcoins, can be spent. A few thousand blocks back (a month) and the blockchain is settled history. It will never change.block, and “top” or “tip” to refer to the most recently added block.
From what I’ve read so far, the book is a nice blend of high level overview and technical details, with code samples no less.