Blockchain is a remarkably transparent and decentralized way of recording transaction lists. Blockchain-based transactions create fast, cheap, and secure public records that can be used for many financial and non-financial tasks such as electronic voting or prove the existence of a document at any given time.
Blockchain is particularly suited for situations when it is necessary to know and track a record of ownership of a particular asset. It can also help solve the problem of music and video piracy, while digital media can legitimize, sell, inherit and deliver second-hand books, vinyl, and more. This emerging paradigm also presents opportunities in all types of public services, such as health and welfare payments.
Blockchain offers the same old record keeping functionality, but without a centralized architecture. The question is how one can be sure that a transaction is legitimate when there is no central authority to verify it. This technology solves this problem by decentralizing so that each user contains a copy of it. Anyone can request that any transaction be added to the block chain, but transactions are only accepted if all users verify their legitimacy.
Each new transaction to be written is grouped into a set with other new transactions for a "block", which is added as the last link in a long "chain" of a transaction history. This chain forms the ledger that is held by all users.
Adding a new block to the chain means updating the ledger managed by all users. Users only accept a new block when they have verified that all of their transactions are valid. If a discrepancy is found, the block is rejected. Otherwise, the block is added and will remain there as a permanent public record.
To test and experiment with blockchain technology, anyone interested in using the sandboxes provided by Alliance technology partners can experiment with them, test technology and develop Blockchain-based applications.