OSS

Blockchain

Abstract

This document aims to explore Blockchain technology’s disruptive potential through an evolutionary perspective with applications in business, and associated information security, socio-economic, legal and ethical perspectives. The first chapter defines the concept of disruptive technologies and what makes Blockchain disruptive. The second chapter narrates the four generations of Blockchain, their respective applications and potential in different industries, followed by constraints and challenges associated with the technology's adoption and usage. The final chapter serves as a natural conclusion to the document, briefly summarizing what was covered in the text, trailed by a narration on Blockchain applications beyond business enterprises, the way forward for Blockchain development, and ethical view points for consideration

Introduction to Disruptive Technologies & Blockchain

(Christensen, 2015) define a disruptive technology as “a novel technology that creates new markets or upsets the status quo in current markets”. With the use of APIs, disruptive technology changes a variety of products and services that were costly, difficult, or too complex into simplified implementations; transforming the business environment to accommodate all types of participants, large and small (Nambobi, 2021). Current disruptive technology trends revolve around Big data, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain etc.

Blockchain is not a single technology, but rather a collection of developing components with potentially unpredictable, and still under research, consequences. It can be described as a flexible database that allows for the creation of transaction entries, their vetting and validation, and storage in a tamper-proof ledger. Industry, economies, and society are forecast to be disrupted by the potential of blockchain’s unique amalgamation of characteristics; whether it be via consumer transactions, breaking down organization silos or enabling cross-enterprises’ collaborations; as highlighted in Figure 1 below (Treiblmaier, 2021).

Blockchain is defying norms of traditional businesses and business processes, pushing them to start thinking differently in terms of creating and delivering value to their customers. The groundbreaking decentralized, trustless, immutable architecture of Blockchain empowers P2P networks and threatens the shift in mediating power of institutions to disintermediated consumers (Shelkovnikov, 2016).

The technology is ripe for not just business potential but also associated career possibilities in the upcoming years including but not limited to - (Thiago Bueno da Silva, 2020) (Sumaira Johar 1, 2021).

• as a Service (BaaS) e.g. Azure, IBM
• IoT and Block Chain in tandem
• Block chain in Artificial Intelligenc

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