Why is blockchain important?

[ParaBoi]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation. I'm about to begin investing and even trading. The name speaks for itself. What function does blockchain serve? Is it merely necessary for recording every transaction, making it essentially just a database? Please continue to be pertinent; I am aware of how blocks are produced.

[seek3r]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation. I'm about to begin investing and even trading. The name speaks for itself. What function does blockchain serve? Is it merely necessary for recording every transaction, making it essentially just a database? Please continue to be pertinent; I am aware of how blocks are produced.

It is not just a database.
The blockchain has the ability to provide a trustless and transparent record of transactions. These transactions are verified by thousands of network participants.
And unlike to a centralized database blockchains operate via a network of nodes. Each node has a copy of the entire blockchain which help to decentralize the whole process.

Blockchains are of course not limited to Bitcoin and are constantly evolving. Ofc they are not just limited to cryptocurrencies but extend to various areas of the economy and/or society.

[Charles-Tim]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation. I'm about to begin investing and even trading.

The bitcoin blockchain which is the first blockchain to ever exist is not used because of stable financial situation, it is for the purpose of having a public ledger that contain information about blocks and transactions which are validated or verified by nodes.

If you want to begin investing and trading, you should know they are different from blockchain. Without blockchain, there will not be anything called bitcoin transaction.

It is worth knowing that trading is very risky, but you can invest in bitcoin, especially in time like this when bitcoin seems to be undervalued.

[satscraper]

What function does blockchain serve? Is it merely necessary for recording every transaction, making it essentially just a database?

Depending on design the functions of  blockchain may be different.

Regarding to bitcoin, blockchain is designed in such way that it invests decentralized and distributed ledger (financial database) with such features as  immutability, security, transparency and  trustlessness .

Needless to say, being FOSS, it requires neither permission nor border to be used.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Think of it as a database, which is stored in thousands of computers across the world. These computers are called "nodes" of the network, and by the protocol they will follow the database that contains the most "work". By "work", I mean that it contains evidence that the most mining has happened in that chain; another way to think about it, is that the most resources have been spent on that database. It is trivial to verify that with the uniformity of hash functions.

If you follow that route, and simply accept as valid transactions included in that most-worked-database, then what you have is a network where minting money and transaction verification are done collectively, without any central authority whose presence is mandatory for the network to operate.

[Findingnemo]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation. I'm about to begin investing and even trading.

Blockchain is a digital public ledger distributed among the participants called nodes, so each and every node can verify the data present in the ledger and validate the data which gives the trustless mode of validation.

Bitcoin is different so don't confuse it with blockchain.

You don't need to have a technical understanding of blockchain to invest in Bitcoin, just the fundamental analysis is enough in my opinion.

[Doan9269]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation. I'm about to begin investing and even trading. The name speaks for itself. What function does blockchain serve? Is it merely necessary for recording every transaction, making it essentially just a database? Please continue to be pertinent; I am aware of how blocks are produced.

Blockchain technology has many applications for it uses, not only bitcoin benefits from being served it purpose, someone like me and you could also make use of blockchain to perform many things as long as we could see them under it's potentials, just as you cannot only find the bitcoin network only on the blockchain, same also are the areas of it application varies in number, for anyone to be trending on this advanced era, one has to know about the blockchain technology and use it where necessarily applicable.

[dzungmobile]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation.

You can learn from open source books on Github, free courses, free websites or blogs.

Then you can practice with Bitcoin Testnet. Claiming Bitcoin Testnet from Testnet faucets and practice with it. The list for Testnet faucets but some are no longer working.
https://tpfaucet.appspot.com/
https://testnet-faucet.mempool.co
https://coinfaucet.eu/btc-testnet
https://tbtc.bitaps.com
http://kuttler.eu/bitcoin/btc/faucet/
http://bitcoinfaucet.uo1.net/
https://tbtc.mocacinno.com/

I'm about to begin investing and even trading.

You are in an unstable financial situation but want to trade, please get rid of this thinking.

You can try to have small saving and invest it in Bitcoin with Dollar Cost Averaging.
https://dcabtc.com/

But trading, no, I advise you don't do this.

[mk4]

It is just a database, a append-only database to be more specific. It's just the fact that the database is heavily distributed and has high redundancy is what makes it really special; because it means that centralized authorities will have a very very hard time to try to take it down or tamper with it.

[Helena Yu]

Blockchain is just a database and it's too general; it can be centralized where only few people control the nodes, it can be decentralized where every person can take a part of the network to become a node, it can be private where only few people able to access it, it can be public where everyone can access it.

In Bitcoin, they use public and decentralized blockchain, that's why you can view every transaction, address etc in block explorer and anyone can access it.

If you want to trade or invest in Bitcoin, you're not necessary need to understand about the technical part.

[cryptoaddictchie]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation. I'm about to begin investing and even trading. The name speaks for itself. What function does blockchain serve? Is it merely necessary for recording every transaction, making it essentially just a database? Please continue to be pertinent; I am aware of how blocks are produced.

Well for some its only purpose is too served as a means of financial or investment. Cant argue with that since most of the users who join this is investing some of their money and wishing for a huge return due to past performances. But maybe understanding this is more important cause its not all about getting 5x or more profit but the efficient it can bring to different sector once its get more adoption.

[Myleschetty]

What function does blockchain serve? Is it merely necessary for recording every transaction, making it essentially just a database? Please continue to be pertinent; I am aware of how blocks are produced.

The blockchain serves many functions in the cryptocurrency space but people mostly focus on the area of it ensuring the lack of a single point of control, improving openness, and lowering the possibility of deception or manipulation.
- Blockchain is what provides no trust of the third party stated by Satoshi and
- Smart contracts are accomplished through the help of blockchain

[NewRanger]

For the sake of argument, I have some knowledge of bitcoin and blockchain but that I didn’t  use them due of my unstable financial situation. I'm about to begin investing and even trading. The name speaks for itself. What function does blockchain serve? Is it merely necessary for recording every transaction, making it essentially just a database? Please continue to be pertinent; I am aware of how blocks are produced.

As @Helena Yu put it, I don't think it has to be too technical if OP wants to stay up late on BTC. Regarding the functions served by blockchain I think there are many, what is clear is that transparency is at the center of Bitcoin and there is no transmission to the bank for transaction completion and Bitcoin is encrypted with its own security protocol.