Can someone here explain (in basic, non-technical terms) what "Blockchain" is, how it works, and the advantages of using Blockchain as opposed to existing software programs that are used to track financial transactions?
(I'm sure there are others here who are as confused by this as I am.)
I highly recommend googling it. In essence at the 35,000 foot level it is a very, VERY secure, simply by the nature of how it works, way to verify and track transactions.
The blockchain is a distributed ledger.
Imagine the old days when the accountant had a leather bound ledger where they kept the balances of every transaction for the company.
The distributed ledger is a database of ALL transactions in the bitcoin univerise. The entries are public. They include a transaction address, a sender address, and a receiver address.
Mining is the process where blocks of recorded transactions are verified against the “ledger” to insure that both parties are legit and than they have the “inventory” to make the transaction valid. These miners are rewarded for their efforts through fees and additional mined bitcoins.
Everything is open. If you know your address, you can pull all of your transactions. This whole stuff about “anonymity” is just not true.
If this helps, let me know. If you want something clarified, I will do what I can.