Describe the blockchain in one sentence

[randy8777]

i see it as an innovation that has the potential to change our currently much dated financial system.

[Raize]

The blockchain is a digital public ledger of accounts containing values protected by modern encryption with transactional trust between those accounts enforced using strong mathematical principles.

[mitus-2]

A safe and secure public ledger for every transaction ever happened in the bitcoin network

[galbros]

The agreed upon record of all bitcoin transactions.

[Rampion]

A tamper-proof, transparent public ledger.

I really miss the word distributed - that's one of the core characteristics of the blockchain.

I'd say: A tamper-proof, transparent and distributed ledger.

[adhitthana]

A few people here have described Bitcoin as a ledger that can't be changed.
But is that entirely correct?
I know there was one altcoin (was it Vericoin?)which had a lot of coins stolen from an exchange and the exchanges and miners got together and rolled back the blockchain so that the thief lost their coins.

Presumably that is possible with Bitcoin?

[Mr.K]

A transparent, unchangeable, digital public ledger.

[Raize]

I know there was one altcoin (was it Vericoin?)which had a lot of coins stolen from an exchange and the exchanges and miners got together and rolled back the blockchain so that the thief lost their coins.

Presumably that is possible with Bitcoin?

That would require collusion of everyone running a copy of the blockchain to suddenly switch to a new one AND for miners to actually mine on it. I don't see any conceivable way people would support a hard fork like that, look at the controversy over Gavin's idea to merely increase the block size as an example of how hard it is to convince people to make a single development change.

[megamore]

Blockchain = transparent distribution and permanent  

[gkv9]

Blockchain is a cashier network working on both sides noting transactions and keeping ledgers...

[juicyjuice87]

Slow usless peice of shit

[Kprawn]

Everyone has their own opinion 

I would go with "A multi-functioned and decentralized tamper-proof, transparent public ledger" .... quite a mouthfull... but it says a lot.

Juicyjuice87 - What do you compare it to, when you say it's slow and useless? A single functioned credit card with chargebacks? or a wire transfer? 

[gugel8989]

good, nice, simple.
its for me, and it depend the user.

[ed_teech]

Blockchain is a series of events (like financial transactions as in Bitcoin), that majority of the nodes on a network agree on their time and seriality.

P.S. Sorry for my english, not a native speaker

[OrientA]

A public ledger you can trace the money flow.

[enhancedfuel]

WOW three pages Thanks guys! Am gonna get stuck into this thread now. Looks very interesting and will comment.

Thanks guys for all your posts. I think I will compile one long paragraph/short essay out of all your replies!

Thanks again.

Tom

[calchuchesta]

The solution of the epic bizantine general problem.

[cbeast]

I can describe it in one word: cool.  

[countryfree]

The cloud-based database which automatically records all BTC transactions and keeps them forever for everyone to see.

The idea of "automatic recording" is important to me, because sometimes, you wish you'd be able to make unrecorded transactions.

[lophie]

Decentralized secure consistent data storage