What Is Blockchain? How It Works, Why It Matters and Real-World Uses

A blockchain is a shared digital ledger in which records are grouped into blocks and cryptographically linked to the blocks before them. Rather than one organisation maintaining the only copy of the record, a network maintains and updates a shared version under agreed rules. The linked structure makes later changes detectable, giving a blockchain tamper-evident and tamper-resistant characteristics—not an unconditional guarantee that data can never be altered or that it was true when entered.

Blockchain: a shared ledger of linked blocks

A blockchain is a shared digital ledger maintained across a network. Its records are grouped into blocks, and cryptographic links connect each block to the one before it; the resulting chain makes changes detectable. The National Institute of Standards and Technology describes this as a shared ledger with linked records.

What enters that ledger is determined through network rules. Nodes use validation rules and consensus mechanisms to agree which transactions and blocks are accepted, reducing reliance on a single controlling intermediary.

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