3
BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY
Running head: BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY 1
Article Review on Blockchain Technology
(Name)
(University)
The article titled Blockchain: Future of Financial and Cyber Security dives into explaining what is blockchain technology. The article begins by revisiting the increasing cases of fraud in the financial sector hence forming the bases upon which the need for blockchain technology arose. The article defines blockchain as a transaction database containing information on all transactions ever executed previously on the blockchain protocol. The core component of blockchain is identified as blocks of data which are determined individually by a hash algorithm.
Next, the article discusses bitcoin’s history, uses and how it works. Bitcoin is identified as having been released in 2009 as a digital currency which is decentralized and produced by a defined rate by all nodes which are participating in the system. The aspect of being decentralized is explained as not being controlled by a government. Various characteristics of Bitcoin are also discussed including non-repudiation, authentication, and integrity, bitcoin mining and decentralized registry. The article further explains hows it works by explain the various underlying concepts such as Pay to Script hash (P2SH), Byzantine consensus, private and public key among other key concepts.
The adoption trends of Bitcoin are also discussed giving various examples of companies around the world that have adopted the use of Bitcoin. The Gartner Hype Cycle for Bitcoin is also considered where bitcoin is found to be the leader among the emerging technologies of 2016. The article also cites the use of blockchain technology in government giving an example of Honduras land registry which is being digitized using the blockchain technology. The paper concludes by looking into the potential of blockchain technology noting that it is poised to be the next big technology.
From the article, I can conclude that a new cybersecurity enforcement agency should be created. The main reason for this is that the technology used in blockchain falls under the domain of cybersecurity in addition to the amount of data that is involved. Given the complexities involved and the high level of sophistication involved, then an agency to work round the clock on blockchain becomes a more viable option.