Blockchain: Hype or Hope?

In this article, I describe the technology behind Bitcoin’s blockchain, and its scalability, security, and robustness. Most of what is written about “blockchain technology” talks about how it will revolutionize all sorts of applications without contrasting it with alternative solutions. To complicate matters, there are all sorts of proposed variants of the original blockchain (the technology behind Bitcoin), making the definition of “blockchain technology” very unclear. I explain how Bitcoin’s blockchain technology works, along with its performance implications.