Introduction

This book was created to help you explore the exciting blockchain technology, and in this first chapter, we're going to dive into its foundational concepts. The idea is to present a fairly broad overview of blockchain, allowing you to be fully prepared for the topics that we'll cover in more depth in later chapters. Since our intention is to introduce blockchain, the following topics will be covered throughout this chapter:

• What blockchain is and isn't
• How blockchains are different from databases
• The history, motivations, and characteristics of blockchain
• The different types of blockchain
• Overview of blocks and how they work
• The influence of Moore's law on blockchain technology

We'll start with the basics of blockchain, including its myths and history. We'll explore the ideas behind some key blockchain concepts, we'll end with an overview of how exactly the blockchain technology works. The topics in this chapter are designed to give you enough motivation and confidence to feel comfortable with the topics we'll be discussing later in the book.