We’ve all heard of the new digital gold mines, where computing power is used to produce cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Etherium. But the significance of the underlying technology—Blockchain—extends far beyond mining and minting new forms of money. For businesses of all kinds, this new transaction verification mechanism promises to transform a broad array of transactions and interactions.
The premise of Blockchain is simple: a globally decentralized database is used to create and manage an immutable log of sensitive transaction activity. Once a record is created, it can’t be changed without leaving evidence of the change.
That makes fraud virtually impossible, and allows the parties in a transaction, contract, or process to track every step of its execution with complete certainty.
Don’t be distracted by the erratic swings of cryptocurrency valuations. While speculators trade digital gold, enterprises are putting Blockchain to work in areas from healthcare to real estate to identity management.
Take supply chain management, for example. Fed up with mislabelled sushi? Now each fish can be accurately tracked from the sea to the dinner plate, bringing transparency and trust to a formerly opaque industry.
You should expect to start seeing Blockchain anywhere business-to-business or business-to-consumer processes need to be streamlined, validated, secured, and guaranteed. These are still early days, but the strategic opportunities and disruptive business models sparked by this transformative technology are too rich to ignore
Christian Reilly, CTO, Citrix
As published in TIME magazine
