[Bitcoin Whitepaper] I am unable to understand what the underlined text is supposed to mean.
https://ift.tt/PQw4Xvh
Regular cash is a good analogy here.
The way the blockchain works, is that it records every transaction, one after the other, from the beginning of time…. as you can imagine, this takes up a lot of disk space…
Coming back to cash, as an analogy… imagine your friend gives you $20, and he also hands you 10 ring binders, each 6 inches thick, full of the names of everyone who had this $20 bill, before you….
In many / most cases, the details of the people who had the $20 bill before your friend had it are irrelevant to you.
All you need to know is that your friend gave it to you, and that it’s valid/real money that can be spent.
To save ‘disk space’, ie having to carry around the 10 ring binders of peoples names, you can discard all details about this $20 bill, up until the transaction occurred where your friend gave it to you.
Cryptocurrency
