Blockchains From a Distributed Computing Perspective

Bitcoin first appeared in a 2008 white paper authored by someone called Satoshi Nakamoto,¹⁸ the mysterious deus absconditus of the blockchain world. Today, cryptocurrencies and blockchains are very much in the news. Much of this coverage is lurid, sensationalistic, and irresistible: roller-coaster prices and instant riches, vast sums of money stolen or inexplicably lost, underground markets for drugs and weapons, and promises of libertarian utopias just around the corner.

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Key Insights

This article is a tutorial on the basic notions and mechanisms underlying blockchains, colored by the perspective that much of the blockchain world is a disguised, sometimes distorted, mirror image of the distributed^a computing world.