The term "peer-to-peer" (commonly abbreviated as "P2P") refers to a distributed networking or computing architecture that distributes workloads or tasks among a number of computer systems, each of which serves as a separate peer. Cryptocurrencies and other types of digital data can be shared using P2P networks. Each peer in a P2P network is referred to as a node, and these nodes' combined efforts are what keep the system up and operating. Each peer (node) in this situation serves as both a client and a server to other peers. This implies that everyone on the peer network transmits and receives digital data in the same way. Because users of a P2P network can both supply and use resources, the network's structure is maintained by its users. P2P systems are very different from typical client-server models, where the data is sent unidirectionally (from a centralized server to its clients) because there is no such thing as a central server or host. P2P networks are both more scalable and highly resistant to cyberattacks because of their decentralized architecture. It becomes more scalable and resilient as more users join. As a result of the lack of a single point of failure (a feature inherent to more traditional models), larger P2P networks achieve great levels of security. When file-sharing systems were introduced in 1999, users could share digital audio files with others without relying on a host or central server, which helped the peer-to-peer architecture gain popularity. P2P networks of many kinds have since emerged. P2P technology is crucial to the development of blockchain.