Blockchain: the Basics

Blockchain. It was the investment buzzword of 2017 and is the business buzzword of 2018. Given its current hyped up status, it is easy to ignore the real world applications in your excitement or disenchantment.

Businesses are starting to use blockchain to manage inventory and create legal contracts. This is just a sample of the list of uses and companies implementing applications. There is even blockchain support being added to BPM platforms to make the technology more accessible to businesses. In my opinion, we are not going to see the world switch over to using blockchain for currency any time soon, but we will see people replace other "trusted entities" with blockchain technology.

I gave a presentation at the University of Maryland earlier this month to students pursing degrees in finance and information systems. It is focused on the business angle of blockchain and serves as a primer to the material.

The presentation starts off describing the original goal of blockchain in Bitcoin, to manage the transfer of value. It then introduces the idea of the bitcoin network, the structure of blocks and describes the process of mining. It concludes with an introduction to applications of blockchain beyond Bitcoin and provides additional resources if you are interested in learning more.

You can go through the presentation below, or view it in a new page here. Make sure to read the speaker notes for an explanation of each slide (accessible via the cog at the bottom of the frame). Please leave any feedback or thoughts in the comments!