Entry 2: Who even understands the "Blockchain"?

Let's try to tackle this question by observing how far we have adapted and adopted the TCP/IP protocol, originally conceptualized in the 70s, commonly called The Internet.

What does the average Internet user really know of the underlying technology? A device that does not have an active connection to the web is to some simply a paperweight. Sure you can do things such as write text, draw and sometimes make a phone call, but those are all outdated concepts. We would rather use verbal commands, video chats and AI generated images (not available offline).

A computer user knows that any file or document can be copied indefinitely (until you run out of disk space) and deleted forever (unless you successfully recreate the data from a backup or recovery service). If both of those things are true then something that is digital is both completely fungible and impermanent. Having internalized this then nothing consisting of mere code should have monetary value unless it was somehow patented and protected by a DRM mechanism.

If you wanted to create "Internet Money" you would need some kind of centralized entity that controlled the issuance, right?. Well, such a reality looms on the horizon.

The first demonstrably sound digital money was introduced with the Bitcoin Whitepaper.

Cryptographers worked on this problem for a long time before any viable solution was found. Yet even with the protocol having been discovered and implemented it would take much longer for it to grow sufficiently so that it would not be vulnerable to attacks which could leave it permanently devalued.

Similar to how the Modem added a data transfer layer on top of voice calling, this protocol adds an additional element to the existing digital infrastructure.

Ask any person you encounter: "What is the fourth dimension?"

Chances are, many will know the answer: Time.

In essence the blockchain introduces this single concept, digital time.

It is also referred to as the "state".

A blockchain can only ever have a single state. Each state is a link in the chain (called a block, hence "blockchain") and is created at set intervals much like time being divided into seconds.

If two states are introduced at the same time, a fork will happen and there will be two chains, identical up to the point of the state change. Only one of these chains however will retain its network (much in the same way as you exist in all possible timelines but are only self-aware in one of them).

*At the time of writing, the Ethereum blockchain is days away from forking due to a change in the consensus mechanism.

The concept of rifts in time and space is a popular topic across fields of entertainment and science. As there are multiple blockchains and forks of chains, there is a sense of interdimensionality to this ecosystem and one of the great challenges is creating bridges between them. Many chains also have layers which enable different applications such as gaming, which requires scalable, high throughput developer environments.

It is easy to see how in the advent of this technology, we have come to sense the emergence of a "Metaverse".

In the following posts we will discuss "Web3" in greater detail.

@0xBOAS