Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) and Blockchains have shown a strong potential in improving existing value chains and also create new ones that reduce intermediation costs, transactional frictions, as well as remedy trust issues, monitoring problems and transparency concerns.
The applications of blockchains are numerous. There is a wide range of sectors that can be affected. Energy grids, healthcare sector, financial sector, supply chains, transport, education, creative industries and public sector are only some of the possible cases.
To fully grasp the potential of DLTs in the spirit of technology neutrality and business model neutrality, we need to understand better its significant underlying properties such as decentralized distributed databases, disintermediation, immutability of data, permissioned and permission-less applications, as well as the technological options it opens in areas like smart contracts and SMEs funding through ICOs. DLTs, along with their potential, bring also concerns about data protection, cybersecurity, interoperability, new sources of fraud and environmental issues.