9. Blockchain – the Case for Market Adoption of the Distributed Ledger

The effort to verify identity and authenticity has influenced much of human history. It is so central to civil society that it has been the subject of plays [1], great literature, famous laws, and is more relevant in the age of computers and passwords than ever before. But more tediously, authenticity has been an obstacle that has slowed the advance of humanity for centuries. The inability to quickly and absolutely verify an individual’s identity or know with certainty the value or existence of a thing remains one of the great obstacles to progress in our day. But that problem could have a technological solution [2]. The technology is called Blockchain and there is an intense, ongoing debate over whether it is capable of progressing authentication practices beyond the clunky system of signatures, notaries, and records that we use today. In this paper, we will consider arguments for and against the widespread adoption of Blockchain. I will seek to make the case for greater reliance on Blockchain technology as a means of modernizing identity management and value transactions. To do so, we necessarily must consider its biggest use case to‐date: Bitcoin. But we will look further, into emerging efforts to apply the technology to real world problems and how it is changing the world.