It has tough competition, but 'blockchain' can only be 2017 technology of the year. Do you want to make your start sound as it is much more sophisticated than it really is? Splash only a few jury of AI in your funding powerpoint and keep it all on blockchain. The cute venture capital dollars will fly into your bank account before you can even say the words "distributed ledger technology".

But what is actually blockchain and why is it all about it? How to explain technology to your family when your uncle asks you about blockchain really is the solution to all societal problems.

Give it to me in a sentence

Blockchain is about storing and processing sensitive information - like financial transactions or voice records - on many different computers, rather than keeping it in one place.

Sounds simple enough. But why bother?

It all comes down to trusting, really. Take a vote in selection as an example. The process of driving a choice so that receives and counts all these voices is usually monitored by a single organization. But there are problems with this approach. Some people have good reasons not to rely on the key organizations, and data is potentially more vulnerable to hacks if everything is held in one place. In theory, blockchain technology enables anyone to keep an eye on what is happening within a system, but does not control anyone about this information.

You have not mentioned the bitcoin yet

OK fine. Bitcoin is the most obvious example of blockchain being put into action. By using bitcoin, people can make financial transactions directly with each other without having to get any third party, in this case a bank involved. Anyone interested can see a public summary of each transaction (without any identifying information attached), but because the data is processed across many computers, no mess with these data.

What's really going on with this network of computers?

This is where the blockage becomes a bit difficult. A blockchain is really a kind of database that is shared across lots of different computers, each running the same software. Each bit of data is secured using some complicated encryption points, which means that only people who are intended to add or edit the data can do that job. Important is the job of adding or editing this data shared between many computers, so no individuals (or even a group of individuals) can destroy the data themselves.

So what is it useful for?

These are really early days for blockchain technology, but there are already a few areas where it is being experimented with seriously. Bitcoin is the obvious, but many similar crypto curves are also based on blockchain. Democracy Earth, a non-profit based in California, uses technology to make it easier for people to vote on questions they care about. The diamond industry is particularly keen on blockchain as it allows them to digitally track the ownership of a diamond without the need for paper certificates. This could help to cut down the market for blood diamonds.

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