for a third party as a go-between. Blockchain essentially builds out the business ledger by allowing multiple signatures, the creation of fingerprints and/or timestamps as an authenticator, and the distribution of information across multiple systems in a network as opposed to one centralized server.
With digital signatures and similar authentication needs, blockchain’s greatest value is in its ability to provide “proof-of-work”—transactions that cannot be edited or removed—integral in both securing and authenticating transactions with signature technologies.
The Future of BlockchainBlockchain’s real-world applications to ensure data integrity are boundless, ranging from maintaining compliance standards to ensuring profitability to tracking data that could save human lives. While blockchain is still experiencing popularity attributed to its hype, it’s no secret that the technology stands to revolutionize information management processes as we know them. If anything, blockchain will perhaps be most valuable when the business process crosses trust boundaries, requiring organizations to grant multiple parties access to the same data and the ability to manipulate it. That value will be further realized if transactions involve third parties controlling the data as a single source of truth or when business processes involve manual verification steps.
Blockchain has already begun to transform the way organizations and whole industries perceive and relate to information. While it’s nearly impossible to conceive of every future scenario, we’re likely only at the cusp of realizing the enormous information management benefits that blockchain will bring down the road.