The National Debt

The national debt level of the United States is a measurement of how much the federal government owes its creditors. Specifically, the national debt is a term referring to the level of federal debt held by the public, as opposed to the debt held by the government itself. Since the U.S. government almost always spends more than it takes in, the national debt continues to rise.

While the debt can be measured in trillions of dollars, it is usually measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), the debt-to-GDP ratio. That's because as a country's economy grows, the amount of revenue a government can use to pay its debts grows as well.

In addition, a larger economy generally means the country's capital markets will grow and the government can tap them to issue more debt. This means that a country's ability to pay off debt, and the effect that debt might have on the country's economy, is dependent on how large the debt is as a proportion of the overall economy, not the dollar amount.

First, it's important to understand what the difference is between the federal government's annual budget deficit (also known as the fiscal deficit) and the outstanding federal debt, known in official accounting terminology as the national public debt. Simply explained, the federal government generates a budget deficit whenever it spends more money than it brings in through income-generating activities. These activities include individual, corporate, or excise taxes.

To operate in this manner of spending more than it earns, the U.S. Treasury Department must issue Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. These Treasury products finance the deficit by borrowing from the investors, both domestic and foreign. These Treasury securities also sell to corporations, financial institutions, and other governments around the world.3

By issuing these types of securities, the federal government can acquire the cash that it needs to provide governmental services. The national debt is simply the net accumulation of the federal government's annual budget deficits. It is the total amount of money that the U.S. federal government owes to its creditors. To make an analogy, fiscal or budget deficits are the trees, and the national debt is the forest.  SOURCE:  Inestopedia

Blockchain

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain seems complicated, and it definitely can be, but its core concept is really quite simple. A blockchain is a type of database. To be able to understand blockchain, it helps to first understand what a database actually is.

A database is a collection of information that is stored electronically on a computer system. Information, or data, in databases is typically structured in table format to allow for easier searching and filtering for specific information. What is the difference between someone using a spreadsheet to store information rather than a database?

Spreadsheets are designed for one person, or a small group of people, to store and access limited amounts of information. In contrast, a database is designed to house significantly larger amounts of information that can be accessed, filtered, and manipulated quickly and easily by any number of users at once.

Large databases achieve this by housing data on servers that are made of powerful computers. These servers can sometimes be built using hundreds or thousands of computers in order to have the computational power and storage capacity necessary for many users to access the database simultaneously. While a spreadsheet or database may be accessible to any number of people, it is often owned by a business and managed by an appointed individual that has complete control over how it works and the data within it.

Storage Structure
One key difference between a typical database and a blockchain is the way the data is structured. A blockchain collects information together in groups, also known as blocks, that hold sets of information. Blocks have certain storage capacities and, when filled, are chained onto the previously filled block, forming a chain of data known as the “blockchain.” All new information that follows that freshly added block is compiled into a newly formed block that will then also be added to the chain once filled.

A database structures its data into tables whereas a blockchain, like its name implies, structures its data into chunks (blocks) that are chained together. This makes it so that all blockchains are databases but not all databases are blockchains. This system also inherently makes an irreversible timeline of data when implemented in a decentralized nature. When a block is filled it is set in stone and becomes a part of this timeline. Each block in the chain is given an exact timestamp when it is added to the chain.  SOURCE:  Investopedia