You’ve almost certainly heard the term blockchain. But you probably have no idea what it is or how it works, let alone why it generates so much hype. That’s OK. Most people don’t.
A-list companies like Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (FB), IBM (IBM), and Walmart (WMT) believe blockchain technology can track shipments, store data more efficiently, among other things.
A blockchain is essentially an immutable public digital ledger.
Now extrapolate that to include countless transactions by millions of people and imagine that copies of the register are held by thousands of computers.
That makes blockchain ideal for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Every one of them, and any transaction using them, has been recorded on a blockchain.
Companies are using blockchains to do a variety of things such as manage pharmaceutical information, track freight shipments and trace the origin of food.
Each application touts the ability of blockchains to keep a complete record of data in a system that can’t be easily changed.
She sees blockchains being most useful for managing digital currencies and tracking health and insurance data.
Tucker said the important thing for early adopters of blockchain technology to remember is that the technology is “evolving” and companies shouldn’t embrace it just for the sake of embracing it.
