Neither you nor her are “explaining” blockchain. Instead you’re mixing in block creation algorithm as if that matter.

Blockchain is a slightly modified version of a Merkle tree, a 41 year old technology that had no use until David Chaum came up with the idea of using it for payment transactions. The secret Mr. Nakamoto enhanced it with an algorithm that permitted payments to be handled semi-autonomously.

It’s very slow and has required a couple major interventions by the permission es developers to fix it (fork). It’s not secure. It’s slow. It requires China to operate it, effectively, by enhancing the hardware to create the required blocks and run giant collections of “rigs” consuming huge amounts of electricity.

It’s breakthrough use-case came with silkroad.com, a website that sold drugs, weapons, stolen info, and murder-for-hire. This use case, although alive and well, has been superseded by it becoming a combination of a Ponzi scheme and a betting pool, referred to inaccurately as an investment.

Where it will go, nobody knows for sure. But the hive of promoters, gamblers, libertarian/anarchist believers and a giant group of various fellow-travelers and opportunists has a big stake in being right. At least long enough before it is corrupted or shutdown or crashes (price-wise) and a variety of other certain end points.

No wonder someone offers a “simple explanation”. Less scary.