The Difference between Blockchain and Bitcoin

2 min readSep 12, 2021

Many people wrongly conflate the two, blockchain and Bitcoin. Bitcoin and blockchain technology are not the same thing but they are closely related. It is mainly because when Bitcoin was released as open source code, blockchain concluded with it in the same solution. Since Bitcoin is one of the earliest cryptocurrency to use blockchain technology, people inadvertently used “Bitcoin” to mean blockchain. Blockchain is the underpinning technology that maintains the Bitcoin transaction ledger.

What is Blockchain Technology?

Blockchain can be defined as a digital payment gateway with all of its transactions recorded correctly. To better illustrate, blockchain is a technology in which multiple people can keep tabs of assets and share data with an agreement in a tamper proof manner.

Blockchain has existed for more than twenty-five years, but it became popular just recently.

Here are three of the main concepts about blockchain technology:

Blocks

Blocks are central to blockchain technology and each chain comprises blocks. Each block will have relevant information about a transaction. It has a unique timestamp and hash, stored chronologically within the blockchain. As the chain grows, it becomes more difficult to manipulate or disrupt its contents.

Miners

Miners are the people who create blocks through complex tasks using their computers or mining rigs.

Nodes

Nodes are part and crucial for the decentralization process of blockchain technology. Nodes help prevent the blockchain from systematic or unsystematic exchanges of information.

What is Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first real-world application of blockchain technology. It uses a decentralized network to facilitate peer-to-peer payments. They offer lower transaction fees than traditional financial institutions. Furthermore, anyone can use Bitcoin. All you have to do is create a bitcoin wallet and use the address on exchanges that trade in cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin and blockchain technology dominate our internet spaces. They are important to be aware of when dealing with cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin and blockchain technology remain unregulated around the world due to their innate complex structures. Making transactions using bitcoin takes a lot of risk. Therefore, using trustworthy exchange providers to convert your bitcoin deposits into local digital currency should be considered.