The Block Chain, It's Like a File

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The block chain is a set of ones in zeros, right? It's not just one file. It's a file that exists on many computers at once. And whenever any transaction happens with bit coin, you add that to everyone's file. The reason it's called a block chain in particular is because instead of adding transactions one at a time, you group em together in a set and then stick the set on to the end of the file. So it's just sort of like a batching mechanism. You just put em together in one chunk. That's kind of the puzzle that everyone's trying to solve on their computer. It's like their throwing dice, generating random numbers until

For something of such obvious importance, money is kind of mysterious. It can, as Homer Simpson once memorably noted, be exchanged for goods and services. But who decides exactly how many goods/services a given unit of money can buy? And what maintains the social contract that we all agree to go along with it? Technology is changing what money is and how we use it, and Neha Narula is a leader in thinking about where money is going. One much-hyped aspect is the advent of blockchain technology, which has led to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. We talk about what the blockchain really is, how it enables new kinds of currency, and from a wider perspective whether it can help restore a more individualistic, decentralized Web. Neha Narula is the Director of the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT. She obtained her Ph.D. in computer science from MIT, and worked at Google and Digg before joining the faculty there. She is an expert on scalable databases, secure software, cryptocurrencies, and online privacy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.