The first cryptocurrency created was bitcoin and it uses the blockchain as its basis. In this article you will learn how this technology was created and how it opened the doors for the emergence of several other digital currencies.
Blockchain was created in 1991 by Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta, who at the time worked at a photocopying company.
One day they had the brilliant idea of creating a system of immutable digital records, from there they started developing blocks of information linked to each other in such a way that nothing can be changed or deleted.
The following year, 1992, they added encryption to the records system, however, until 2008 there was still no name given to this technology, or even any proven use case.
Not even in the bitcoin white paper does the word blockchain appear, as we usually say.
It refers to blocks of information (block) and chain data, so much so that these words were repeated in the white paper it was natural to combine these words and call it blockchain, hence the term.
After all, how does blockchain work?
The structure of bitcoin is the blockchain, which remained dormant until Satoshi Nakamoto used it
In the literal translation of blockchain, it means chain of blocks, they are blocks of information that are linked to each other.
The moment a registration occurs on the blockchain, it is not possible to change any block without it going unnoticed, and once registered it is forever marked in the history of that blockchain.
The blockchain also serves as a timeline, where facts cannot be modified, which makes it immutable and irreversible.
The only time it is possible to modify something is when the blocks were first created, making it possible to reverse these blocks of information.
However, it would require a very short window of time and a large technological apparatus to invade at least 51% of the network, in addition to billions of dollars in investments to make the idea a little more viable, even without any guarantee of success.
With each block created, the difficulties and costs of reversing the information become greater.
With the Bitcoin blockchain being the longest and most difficult chain to reverse, it is still the most secure blockchain to date.
Miners;
This information is inserted into the network through very powerful computers called miners, which perform mathematical calculations to solve a type of cryptographic puzzle.
When they find the right answer, the network validates and registers the block on the blockchain and miners receive bitcoins as a reward for having lent all their operational power to run the network.
This mechanism is called Proof of Work and unlocks new protocol coins as blocks of information are created, the computer that solves the cryptographic problem first wins the round's bitcoins.
For this reason, miners constantly compete with each other to see who can solve the calculation first.
The number of bitcoins is limited, so that by the year 2140, only 21 million of the digital currency will be created.
