Pineal Express

Blockchain is a kind of tamper resistant digital ledger. The ledger stores data in groupings called "blocks." What data gets stored in the blocks depends on what the blockchain is being used for (whether it's to transfer digital currency, or to store and distribute other transaction information like real estate or medical records, and so on). Also stored in the blocks is an encrypted digital fingerprint, or hash, that identifies the block and what data is inside it. Each newly generated block also contains the previously generated block's digital fingerprint such that the blocks can be sequentially linked or "chained" together, hence the term "blockchain." Tampering with the data inside any block within the chain is therefore difficult, in part because such tampering would constitute an alteration of the block's digital fingerprint, thereby risking the unlinking of the block and the breaking of the chain. One major benefit of blockchain is that the generation, or "mining" of such blocks and their distribu