Video: Blockchains

In this lesson, dive into the exciting world of blockchains with Nick Palazzolo, CPA, who brings clarity to this complex subject. He likens the blockchain to a massive, decentralized general ledger, explaining its role as a digital ledger that records transactions across a network of computers. Nick unpacks the concept of blockchains being used beyond cryptocurrencies and highlights their auditability, permanence, and resistance to retroactive alterations, making them a groundbreaking tool for transparency and security in digital transactions. Moreover, he addresses the relevance of blockchain technology in the context of the evolving CPA exam, encouraging an understanding of IT concepts like disaster recovery to stay current with the exam's requirements.

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Video Transcript

Instructor: Nick Palazzolo

Nick Palazzolo is head instructor of ExamPrep.ai CPA Review. Nick's teaching style is engaging & upbeat, combining practical Big 4 tax & assurance expertise with years of 1-on-1 coaching. His lessons are concise and emphasize what you need to know to pass. Whether you're a recent grad or working full-time, we’re confident you can conquer your CPA exams with Nick’s review.

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Oh, boy, the blockchain. Now, if some of you are sick of hearing about crypto on the blockchain, not from here. We don't really cover it too much here. I get it. I personally am quite a fan of technology.

I think it's great, but I totally get it if you're not a fan. So it's a decentralized, distributed and oftentimes public digital ledger. Any of you are accountants and oh boy, I bet I can find one or two of you who are here. Think of it like a big old general ledger. Just general ledger. Write all the transactions. We've got transaction one, transaction two, just one big public, decentralized, meaning no one owns this. It just exists out there on the Internet. Everyone around the world runs their computers and verifies these transactions and says, yes, Nick sent $100 to John and that was this transaction. And then John sent $100 to Sarah.

So that is an example of these transactions. And there's all these computers verifying it. And why do they do this? Well, they get rewards through the blockchain, through bitcoin, but blockchain is just a concept. There are blockchains over many different cryptocurrencies, but the blockchain is just a concept. You see here. I don't even mention cryptocurrency at all anywhere. It's just a concept. Obviously, I'm going to mention cryptocurrency because it's just how it is. Okay, we've covered how it's a public ledger, decentralized. So no one owns this. No one can edit this, no one can modify it. There's so many computers connected to it that they're all verifying the transactions. They're all like independent little auditors. And it doesn't have to be public. There are private blockchains, but oftentimes public. So these records are called blocks. So you could think of, let's

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