[nailer]

I don't know why you're being downvoted. That seems a reasonable definition of blockchain, in much the same way one could give a reasonable definition of an array as a sequence of items.

The article's premise that 'The term blockchain is misused and frequently misunderstood' (which is true) means 'Blockchain is meaningless' doesn't hold water and this is very typical for a Vox technology article.

[jgh]

I think gp's definition is still too broad. Consensus is not an inherent property of blockchains, for example. You can make blockchains without any consensus at all, or with some central authority prescribing reality. A blockchain is simply a kind of data structure, like a linked list or a hash map or an array.

[seanalltogether]

Exactly. Is "blockchain" just the data structure, or is it the data structure + the protocol for communication + the software to validate it?

Another example might be bit torrent. I personally wouldn't classify bit torrent as just the data structure. I would say its the data structure, the protocol and the end clients. However if someone used these technologies to create a different format and a different protocol, I wouldn't think of it as bit torrent.

[nailer]

I'd agree with that (though not to point of voting gp down): the aims and benefits of blockchains should be seperate from their definition.

[s73v3r_]

It's meaningless because it's become just another buzzword.