Blockchain is a new type of distributed agency that records and stores digital transactions without a central authority. Its immutable record of events reduces fraud and eliminates the need for middlemen, enabling people to conduct business directly and securely. The technology is being applied across industries, from finance to supply chain management.
Most of us are familiar with blockchain as the underlying technology for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. And for good reason: cryptocurrencies embody the core design principle of blockchain—a bank-less, inexpensive, secure, and trusted way to make payments and exchange value.
While cryptocurrencies are the first to take advantage of blockchain’s benefits, tens of thousands of projects are looking to implement it for purposes beyond record-keeping. For example, blockchain’s immutable nature makes it a great platform for recording votes in democratic elections. Votes would be recorded as crypto or tokens sent from voters to candidates’ wallet addresses, eliminating the need for human vote counting and the ability of bad actors to tamper with physical ballots.
The tech community’s interest in blockchain is growing rapidly. However, it’s not yet clear whether the technology will be able to break out of its cryptocurrency heritage and become widely used in journalism.
The following piece explores targeted solutions that use blockchain to store important metadata journalists and media companies rely on on a daily basis. It also examines how government-deployed blockchains that secure public data and smart contracts—computer programs that rely on rules encoded in computer code to automate processes such as closing contracts, settling claims, notarizing documents, and recording deeds—could reconfigure the ways newsrooms access their public data.