An article in the newspaper on Blockchain triggered a question to my mom who is 76 years old and I was surprised with this question from her one day, “Can you explain blockchain to me?” Without thinking, I started rambling technical jargons explaining the documentation of data in a public ledger and was immediately interrupted – “what do you mean?” I paused, took a deep breath and realized that I was talking to mom! My mom loves crochet, so I switched gears and thought about using that as an example. Here is an excerpt from that conversation…

Very similar to crochet chain stitch, think about information as the thread. When you make a loop and a knot, you are connecting the loops to create an extended garment / artwork. Each loop is the foundation for the next loop and is dependent on each other, the loops cannot exist by themselves. Also, your knowledge of crochet is stored in your brain and you can make an exact copy of the garment / artwork whenever needed.

Coming back to blockchain, each block of information is similar to a loop in crochet. This block of information could be a cash withdrawal transaction from your bank or an electricity bill payment transaction or any other agreement between two parties. Each of these transaction if connected together forms a chain and each part of the chain is carved in stone – meaning secured, so that it cannot be erased or changed. This makes the chain trust-worthy and secure. Also, your identity is secured by locking it down so that no one else can see your identity, but can see the transaction. An exact copy of the chain of information is stored in multiple locations (like the crochet technique stored in your brain) to ensure that if one thread gets torn or deleted, another copy of the entire chain exists somewhere else. This ensures that the chain of information is kept safe.

So in a nutshell, this method of storing information in a chain is called blockchain, mom!

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