REWIRING THE CONCEPT OF BLOCKCHAIN IN CHANGING WORLD

Book excerpt: To put it simply, blockchain is a new category of IT that blends encryption with distributed ledger capabilities. The architecture continues to use a distributed network of computer tokens that work together to ensure the safety of a database without relying on a centralised server. Blockchain is the underlying technology for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum, and it is also being used to store permanent records of other sorts of transactions. Bitcoin was the impetus for its creation in 2008. As more and more industries found use for the technology, it rose to prominence in recent years. The data or records are kept in a cryptographic format, which protects both their confidentiality and their integrity. By using digital signatures, both the sender and the recipient may be sure that the information they exchanged cannot be disputed later on. The notion of a programmable blockchain was first proposed by Ethereum. Smart contracts have broadened the use of blockchain technology to fields as diverse as supply chain management, healthcare, voting systems, etc. Given the network effects of today's broad worldwide Internet and cellphone connections, blockchain technology, which has revolutionary potential on par with that of the Internet, might be implemented and accepted far more swiftly than the Internet was. Paradigm 4's socialmobile functionality—with mobile applications for everything and sociality as a website characteristic (liking, commenting, friending, forum participation)—may have set the bar too high for Paradigm 5's blockchain to meet. As the economic layer the Web never had, Paradigm 5 functionality may be the experience of a continuously connected, seamless, physical-world, multidevice computing layer with a blockchain technology overlay for payments. This could include not only standard payments but also micropayments, decentralised exchange, token earning and spending, digital asset invocation and transfer, and smart contract issuance and execution.