A blockchain example to delve into this technology

A blockchain is a ledger for transactions built with blocks of information chained together. It can be public (bitcoin) or private (banks).

Bitcoin miners fight to verify a transaction first and once verified are rewarded with Bitcoin. This theoretically keeps it open and fair as anyone can verify transactions (does Stacey have enough coin to do this transaction if we trace her activity all the way back?). However, in practice mining becomes too expensive for an average user and is instead utilized by companies with big server farms. This method doesn't scale well overtime and uses a lot of resources.

A miner is given a transaction to verify if they have a large amount of coin themselves. By "betting" their own coin on the transaction they just verified, they have stake in the game and are less likely to falsify records. This method is scalable but favors the wealthy. Ethereum (Ether is the coin, Ethereum is the network) is switching to this.

A protocol is simply a method of commication. Protocols like Ethereum and Bitcoin, are determined by each network beforehand and are unique to each network (but dont have to be). Ethereum reads and writes blocks of information different than Bitcoin. It's like a language.

Coin like Bitcoin or Ether, are a network's main currency.

Tokens are built upon a network's infrastructure but are not apart of it. So we can create "crypto coins" like SHIB using Ethereum's network but it will actually be a token.