# Tiny Bytes: Quick Late Night

**Published by:** [ldnovak](https://paragraph.com/@ldnovak/)
**Published on:** 2022-07-06
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@ldnovak/tiny-bytes-quick-late-night

## Content

Hi, I started too late tonight and want to sleep. So let’s make this quick. To spin it positively, let’s practice being extra focused today and pick a topic that I can write in 20 minutes. So, what’s a blockchainHopefully Not Very Technical ExplanationA blockchain is a log of events. Event A happened then event B then event C. This is really cool because we can have anyone add a new event (as long as they follow the rules). So Alice can say she sent $5 money to Bob and everyone can know that Alice had $5, now has 5 less dollars, and Bob has 5 more dollars. What does this matter?There’s no middleman in this transfer. (payments)A bank doesn’t need to confirm Alice has $5. Alice and Bob don’t need to setup with the bank. The bank can’t cancel or lock money. (There are caveats here but let’s ignore them)I like the think of this as getting close to being able to mimic dollars IRL. I can give money to my mom without needing to go to a bank. In concept, that is really cool. (let’s ignore the recorded data for now)I can keep track of data in a public way. (data sharing / interoperability)Normally, to keep track of data a private database is used. Only the company/person who owns the database can modify data. Now anyone can.What’s extra cool here is this makes it easy for applications to share data, or interoperability. If Snapchat and Instagram want to keep track of my contacts, they have separate databases and I can’t easily move my contacts across. If that info was on a blockchain they could both use the same contact sheet. If I have a weapon in Runescape it is stuck in Runescape. If it was on the blockchain I could move it to TF2.Security benefits tied to my account (secure identity)Alice and Bob have blockchain addresses. They identify who they are and give good ways to encrypt and signal ownership of information. (they have public private key pairs).Digital identity is massive. Think of how big it is to login to your online accounts. Banks, medical, Google (lol at them being in same sentence but makes sense). Digital id lets us interact online, enabling new experiences and preventing fraud. Note, this identity isn’t owned by a company. The login isn’t tied to Google, Apple, or Facebook, it’s a public algorithm.Geez out of time. Got a little technical at the end but overall think I did a good job. Also took sometime to think of the topic but once I got going it just came out. Night, Lucas

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