So one of, honestly, the fun things that I kind of experienced whenever we go into all these blockchain meetups and we're teaching people, helping them, is explaining to a new person what is the blockchain, right? It's always a question. So, recently, I was talking to someone at one of our events and he had a really good explanation. So we'll see if I can convey that to you, guys. So, the way he describes it is, let's say, you and a friend want to basically transact money. He owes you for some pho that you had the day before, it's 10 bucks. Each of you have ledger, basically, a piece of paper where you have the current balance of your wallet written down. And so, in this particular case, let's put both people in a stadium surrounded by 360 degrees, by seats. This first example, no one's in the seats, it's just you and your friend. I basically can say, all right, I'm sending you $10, I put that on my ledger. You write on yours that I received $10. So technically, I should subtract $10 from my wallet, and you should add $10. But there's no way outside of us looking at each other's wallets to really tell what actually happened, especially if it's just being kept track on paper, right? So, the idea and where the blockchain comes in is imagine you have in this 360-degree stadium, every single seat is filled with a person who has their own ledger of every single person who's making a transaction. And they're keeping track of everything that they see happen in the central stage. So now, if I start out with $10 in my wallet, you start out with 0, and I send $10 from mine to someone else's, and every other person in the stadium is watching this transaction, and they're writing down exactly what they see, then we're starting to understand how the blockchain works. Essentially, you're distributing the ledger. So, and every single one of these people is incentivized in order to say what they actually see based on the fact that they would get paid a small amount. Okay, I'm losing it. [LAUGH] >> That's actually a really good explanation of blockchain. I would say we can even make it simpler. So, a blockchain to me is just an immutable data structure that is append-only. So what that means is immutable, you can never go back and tamper with previous contents of the ledger. And so append-only means you can only add data on as you go. So you can never go backwards in time and change what happened in the past. But in the moment right now, you can always add something into the chain. So, essentially, blockchain is just a way to store data in a tamper-proof manner. And you can use it for business, for supply chain, for cryptocurrencies. There's many different use cases, but the value comes from it's essentially an immutable database. So a normal database, it's really easy to go in and change previous values and be able to totally delete any past history. But the blockchain, the history is all there and cannot be deleted, and that's the value proposition. >> Solid. >> Yeah, no, I think you got up a good explanation and same as Europe. Probably the right explanation that comes where you talked to. It's all cool we're just getting into the blockchain understanding, then you probably need the more daily life example. If you talk to a technical person that has some knowledge about transactional databases, then it will be a little bit different example. For transactional databases, let's say it's pretty much the same because you have transactions, you have transactions. Database is usually somewhere in the private. And in order to know anything that happened, you have to know that central access point in order to read and see that happened. Here is everything public, so everyone can see it. So that's another difference, unless you move the blockchain into private data center. So then you can't read anything. So you still have to go to a central point in order to read the state of the transaction here and here so beat and your skill set or linear transactional basis and here will need the access to central point to read it. So from this point, they kind of are at the same time, the same kind, the same thing is just technologically they're implemented differently. Here, maybe it's more homogeneous way to access data in the transaction. There you have many vendors work or skill set of my skill and possibly whatever you want. And they are specific and they have their own ways or how to do the shutting for the data. Here it's more ready for innovation than here locked into a vendor and never do anything. >> Yeah. And then you have different facility then the security goes crazy. So that will be an explanation for technical people. For who goes into like being able to understand what this ledger is. Because once you start putting all this technology and awards, you have to explain them, because you are not sure of them or what is alleged or what is a transaction what is. So, it's more of a public space where people can see what you write. As long as that public space and once you've write, you're right, you cannot delete it, it's there. Even someone who wants to delete the traces he can't, he can do it on his PC. But that doesn't matter because there is a like a couple million more species, keeping the copy of the data so it can still be query. >> But it's important to note that not all blockchains are decentralized. So you're talking about a decentralized. >> Yes, yes, so this is where I'm going as long as this is public, and it's in public site, you can. If you move it to a private chain or a private data center, then it's not. But, we can leave all this because usually that happens for a business reason or for any conditions, data sensitive requirements. So as long as it's in public site, you can read and see what happened. And everyone can confirm that, yes, this happened. So, it's a place where he can write stuff and you can confirm that they happened. Is there an analogy for other databases or ledgers? Maybe ledgers more like known as a terminology for people from the financial or who do all sorts of bookkeeping. Would you be able to explain that to others who just completely different activities in other industries? Probably not. So, you kind of have to pick the terminology and explain the concept that you are able to start with, and then others can verify, and what you right, that's it, and you cannot change it. So then, technically-wise, it translates to immutability, append-only, and other fancy technology. >> [LAUGHS] Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, like, when you're trying to explain blockchain to someone, the reason it's hard is because it's so new, right, and it involves so many different aspects. So I think the best way for someone to really understand and be able to think and figure out what the blockchain is is to dive into it themselves and get their hands dirty. Learn about Bitcoin, learn about a Ethereum and follow the process of a transaction from start to end. Without doing that, you can say that you understand it but you really don't have that basis of knowledge in order to both be able to understand how the current system works and also think in the future. >> Yeah. >> Yes, because you are forcing people to learn very technical terminology and concepts. So that than once they are over it and they don't know if they still understand it or not, you are forcing them off the next step is you're forcing them to actually somehow find a way to make their business better. >> Exactly. >> [CROSSTALK] has to happen is more of the pitching for the technology has to be different, what do you say? Okay, so what are you doing? He'll say, I'm running a franchise, I'm selling Starbucks coffee. So the pitching should be, okay, let me show you how you can make more money based on the blockchain. And, his understanding will be through the perspective on of increasing his income by using public ledgers. And understanding of this low level technical terminology will be a lot easier because he knows how to translate this to what he's used to. >> To his use case, to his business case, yeah. >> That's pretty much it, I think.
