I stumbled across an interesting article titled “Beyond Bitcoin: How The Blockchain Could Disrupt Our Financial System” (Forbes/SAP Business Trends, Dan Wellers, SAP, August 11, 2015). Reflecting on how Professor Schermann had included a short discussion on Bitcoins and the Blockchain in our opening lecture, I decided it was worth reviewing. Dan starts out right away in the article dispelling any fears that the Bitcoin would ever replace any of the worlds existing currencies, and then shifts focus to his main topic of discussion – the Blockchain, or the underlying technology of the currency itself. The Blockchain, utilizing cryptography coupled with a distributed management architecture, has the potential to serve as a powerful electronic historical ledger that doesn’t rely on a centralized legacy financial institution. The power lies in decentralization and the incentives involved in verification of transactions. This, combined with current computing technologies, has created a new mechanism to operate more securely in todays and tomorrows increaeingly digital environment. I feel Dan has nailed it, and anyone that is dismissing the Bitcoin, is failing to realize the true economic value – the underlying Blockchain and its potential impact and implications on a larger scale. Stay tuned!
2 thoughts on “The Blockchain”
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Interesting!
That’s very important point, bitcoin is just a tip of the iceberg. Blockchain technology utilizing cryptography coupled with a distributed management architecture, has the potential to serve as a powerful electronic historical ledger that doesn’t rely on a centralized legacy financial institution. This decentralization verification of transactions have its implications falling in fields such as payment infrastructure, Digital Assets, Identity, Verifiable data and Smart Contracts and also many more as the technology advances.