Blockchain - What it is, and a non-financial use case

Abstract:  The interest in blockchain technology has risen dramatically in a short period of time. Conceptualized by the release of Bitcoin in 2008, the technology has grown at a steady pace, gaining traction over time with the interest of a large number o f industries. This paper explores the current state of the blockchain research space, providing a thorough description of the technology and its fundamental features. A literature study was conducted with the aim of defining a blockchain, where the result shows that two main characteristics are present; A blockchain is a data structure storing information in blocks where each block references the previous block. Further, data is distributed among blockchain network participants. Furthermore, this paper showcases the versatility of the technology by proposing a blockchain based model for digital voting at general meetings. While the model managed to provide a transparent means of tallying and verifying the outcome of a vote, it should be noted that a compromise had to be made in terms of trusting a third party.