Hi John — that’s basically what the blockchain does. For a more nuanced, technical step by step on how this is achieved, I’d check out the “visual demo” link in the further reading section above. As far as participating in these projects there a different paths — as a user (using/buying via exchanges/wallets— ), as a miner/validator, or as a contributor to the open source code. I’ll add a few more guide resources in a bit. For now a quick google should bring up a lot of beginners guides from reputable news sources. It's the wild west right now so do be careful and do your due diligence.