[njiahderick]

The fact that the ledger is maintained by a group of connected computers rather than by a centralized entity like a bank has several implications:

• In our bank system we only know our own transactions and account balances; on the blockchain everyone can see everyone else’s transactions.
  
• While you can generally trust your bank, the bitcoin network is distributed and if something goes wrong there is no help desk to call or anyone to sue.
  
• The blockchain system is designed in such a way that no trust is needed; security and reliability are obtained via special mathematical functions
  

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fast increasingly easy to do