This is a submission for DEV Computer Science Challenge v24.06.12: One Byte Explainer.

Explainer

Blockchain is like a giant ledger that register transactions, but secured with cryptography and grouped into linked blocks, validated by a consensus mechanism executed by the network participants that ensures transactions veracity before being registered

Additional Context

A transaction is any action taken on a blockchain network, and in the context of a giant ledger example represents the register of an Income or an Outcome, using criptographies techniques to hide the data included on it.

Blockchain literally means a "chain of blocks", because of every time a block is validated by the validators nodes (a.k.a. Miners), this is added to the end of the chain, linked to the last block.

Validators nodes are in charge of mantain the integrity of the blockchain, using a consensus mechanism to validate the transactions added to the network before registered them forever in a new block, in exchange for a reward.

A Consensus Mechanism is the way how validators nodes agree each other that a transaction is valid or not. Just to know, there are a few methods to achieve this but the main ones are called Proof of Work (PoW, used by Bitcoin) and Proof of Stake (PoS, used by Ethereum), however, the details about how them work is not for this post.

Infographic: Image by freepik
Cover: Image by freepik