Blockchain – The New Data Management Standard?
What’s the blockchain and do I care? Well, it’s becoming a source of potential government service upheaval, business, bank and government record-keeping re-engineering, “currency” evolution, and an ever-growing source of incredibly interesting on-line services.
The impact of the blockchain on our lives and our culture will be very significant. Although it is not what one would call a “disruptive technology” like the Internet, it is most definitely a “foundational technology” in that it provides a most interesting base on which economic and civil activities can take place. Certainly it is akin in importance at least to the development of the telephone in the 19th century.
It is also what the first crypto-currency, bitcoin, exists on. Bitcoin itself was an experiment on the blockchain, both of which are said to have been invented by the mysterious never-seen person calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. It is thought that he developed the blockchain to serve as the public transaction ledger of the bitcoin currency.
The blockchain is a chain of records, or “blocks”, containing “ledgers”, or data. These are linked and secured with cryptography. The system is designed to prevent unauthorized changes to the records/data which are stored. “Trusted” parties write every record and records are “chained” together so any tampering with them is easily detected. It is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties and any other important records efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way.
In short, it is a massive network of shared ledgers that store unchangeable documents. It is probably significantly more secure than the traditional filing systems of most government enterprises or banks. It is unlikely it will be breached and being distributed it can’t be destroyed. Documents can’t be removed or changed at will.
It is highly reliable, decentralized, immutable, permanent, public and available 24 hours a day. And the records don’t take up very much space.
It has the promise of making many government document systems much more efficient and accessible. If you have ever bought a house or other real estate, you will recall the piles of paper and possibly maps, and other documents involved, which you had to execute and deliver, many of which would be taken to a government office and filed away. In many States, land records before a certain date, usually 100 years back, may be removed from the files and stored in a remote storeroom.
The blockchain would make it possible to maintain a permanent electronic file of a piece of property which would receive records of all subsequent transfers/modifications etc. of the property.
