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RE: Cookie Crumbs 3: Accountsquatting with a Bonus & Addressing a Neccessary Change in HF20
You may be correct, and I bet you know more than I do about blockchain.
I did stumble upon the phrase 'immutable blockchain' which makes me wonder if there is redundancy in it.
I do not comprehend what prevents a blockchain from becoming mutable in principle.
The whole idea of blockchain is to run an immutable trustless ledger.
Allowing later modifications to older blocks would essentially make the whole idea pointless. It will then require "trust" in those who can change the historic blocks.
Simplified: a new block validates against the previous block, if a previous block gets changed, all subsequent blocks become invalid. So changing old blocks would also require rerunning the whole chain from that point on.
Technically this would only be possible if all "miners" (in case of steem witnesses) were in on it, but even then, copies of the unchanged blockchain would still be available. You would basically create a new chain all together.
Some trust in a big enough majority of reliable people (Which most of Steemit's top 30 witnesses are) is crucial for the sustainability and efficiency of a blockchain which should become mutable, or else.