Unpacking the blockchain for the curious (non-engineer) reader
By Adrià Roig
May 28, 2025, 4m read time
The blockchain is one of the most powerful innovations of our time. But let’s be honest, it sounds complicated, full of buzzwords and confusing tech. If you’re curious but tired of jargon, this post is for you.
But first, let’s clear up one myth:
Bitcoin is not the first cryptocurrency.
It’s just the first one that worked. The idea of digital money started way earlier, the first attempt was DigiCash, created in 1989. It took nearly 20 years of trial and error to get to Bitcoin in 2008. This stuff didn’t come out of nowhere, it came from decades of research, coding, and failure.
What even is a “blockchain”?
The name tells you everything. It’s literally a chain of blocks. Each block is connected to the one before it, like links in a chain.
So, what’s inside a block? Three things:
- A timestamp: when the block was created
- A list of transactions: e.g., “I send 1 Bitcoin to Maged,” “I receive 10 BTC from an investor”
- The hash of the previous block: a random-looking number that acts like a digital fingerprint of the block’s content, that’s what links them all together.
How do we know a transaction is valid?
Good question. It’s not about trust, it’s about math.
To validate a transaction just means checking that you have enough funds. If you have 10 BTC and try to send 1 BTC, great. Try to send 20 BTC? Invalid.
Simple, right? A kid could do it.
But here’s the cool part; instead of kids, millions of computers around the world do this automatically. They run software that checks every transaction. Since the blockchain is public, everyone can see everything. If one computer tries to cheat, the others call it out.
That’s decentralization in action.
But… who pays for all this?
Nobody runs these computers for free.
When you use the blockchain, you pay a transaction fee. That fee is a reward, but here’s the twist: although many computers validate the block, only one gets the reward.
That sounds unfair, right? Here’s why it works.
The “magic number” (and why mining isn’t about math skills)
The computers validating the block are all trying to find something special: a magic number (called a “nonce”).
This number, when combined with the rest of the block’s content, must produce a hash that starts with a certain number of zeros. That’s what makes mining hard, you’re not solving a formula; you’re guessing millions of times until the hash fits the pattern.
Whoever finds that number gets to add the block to the chain, and receives the reward.
That’s what mining really is.
And no, this can’t be “cracked.” Because the content of each block keeps changing (new transactions, timestamps, etc.), the “magic number” is always different. The network adjusts the difficulty every two weeks to keep block times around 10 minutes on Bitcoin.
TL;DR: What you need to know
- Blockchain = a chain of blocks full of transactions, each one linked to the next
- Each block contains a timestamp, transaction data, and a hash of the previous block
- Computers worldwide validate these transactions and compete to “mine” the next block
- The winner finds a special number that fits the hash pattern, and earns the reward
- The more people mine, the harder the puzzle gets (automatically)
Why FOHLE Finance doesn’t make you learn this
At FOHLE, we build for people; not protocol geeks. We want you to use blockchain safely, easily, and without reading 100 Reddit threads.
That’s why our wallet skips seed phrases, handles complexity in the background, and gives you access to real crypto, with no leverage, no trading addiction, no nonsense.
You don’t need to become a miner or a blockchain expert.
You just need a wallet that works.
FOHLE Finance. In your POCKET, under CONTROL.
About Adrià Roig
From industrial engineer to blockchain visionary, Adria is obsessed with revolutionizing the way the world thinks about finance. With a mission-driven mindset and product-first approach, he’s on a quest to make crypto human.
