What Exactly is Blockchain Technology?

Theorised in a 1991 paper, How to time-stamp a digital document, by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, advanced upon by Nick Szabo and Stefan Konst in 1998 and 2000, respectively, and implemented in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, ‘blockchain’ has been at the forefront of technological development for almost a decade and a half.