Blockchain Technology

Currently, the financial transactions between individuals, organizations, and companies are taking place with the help of third-party approval of intermediaries such as banks, financial institutions, standardizing bodies, or credit card providers. These transactions involve multilevel approvals, costs, and inefficient processes in some cases, which also lead to waste of time and resources. To resolve these issues, blockchain technology has appeared as a new financial digital innovative solution. Here, financial transactions are online, open, and transparent. In this chapter, the authors present systematic literature of relevant research on blockchain technology. The objective is to understand the historical evolutions, current ongoing research, base technologies, and applications. The authors have extracted research articles from scientific databases including EBSCO, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The online blogs, wikis, media articles, YouTube videos, and companies' white papers on blockchain technology are also used for content analysis.

Blockchain Integration Into Supply Chain Operations

Following the globalization initiated by containerization of logistics, supply chains might be due another revolution by the integration of the disruptive blockchain technology that addresses the current issues with the management of complex global supply chains. Blockchains are distributed digital ledgers that require no central authority to operate while offering a tamper-proof and transparent history of each transaction from the very beginning. Distributed nature of these ledgers ensure that every participant of the supply chain has access to trusted data. The industry has already begun experimenting with blockchain integration into their operations. For the majority of the organizations, however, these experiments stay in proof-of-concept stages or small pilot studies. In this chapter, the authors discuss the supply chain characteristics that make blockchain integration favorable, lay the groundwork for how blockchain can be used for supply chain operations and how it has been used so far.

Blockchain Technology for Records Management in Botswana and Zimbabwe

The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has ushered in several emerging and disruptive technologies. Southern Africa's records management practices have for a long time been reported to lag behind in embracing new technologies. Several studies have revealed lack of requisite skills to manage electronic records while others still lament the un-procedural management of paper records. The intention of this chapter is, therefore, to initiate a discourse that challenges information management practitioners to embrace disruptive technologies lest they themselves get disrupted. There are several emerging technologies, but this chapter focuses on blockchain technology and its possible benefits for records management. Guided by the technology acceptance model, the study established that archivists and records managers in Botswana and Zimbabwe would adopt blockchain if it is easy to use and useful for records management. The chapter ends by proposing a model for the adoption of blockchain technology for records management.

Perspectives of Blockchain in Cybersecurity

In recent years, blockchain has emerged as a popular data structure for use in software solutions. However, its meteoric rise has not been without criticism. Blockchain has been the subject of intense discussion in the field of cybersecurity because of its structural characteristics, mainly the permanency and decentralization. However, the blockchain technology in this field has also received intense scrutiny and caused to raise questions, such as, Is the application of blockchain in the field simply a localized trend or a bait for investors, both without a hope for permanent game-changing solutions? and Is blockchain an architecture that will lead to lasting disruptions in cybersecurity? This chapter aims to provide a neutral overview of why blockchain has risen as a popular pivot in cybersecurity, its current applications in this field, and an evaluation of what the future holds for this technology given both its limitations and advantages.

Blockchain Technology and General Issue of Tax Evasion via Bitcoin

Cryptocurrencies often also serve money laundering activities, terrorist financing, tax evasion, and other illegitimate activities with a market value of more than 7 billion euros across the globe, though the total amount is hardly measurable. Indeed, the blockchain technology involves many virtual currencies, including bitcoin, to conduct various financial transactions related practices throughout the world economies. Besides, other blockchain applications are making positive contributions to a wide array of other industries including healthcare, supply chain, manufacturing, etc. This technology which constitutes the backbone of digital assets transactions currencies is characterized by anonymity, privacy, security, and speed. In this sense, for tax administration authorities, detection of financial fraud and regulations with respect to taxation of virtual transactions pose newer emerging challenges. This chapter aims to examine the blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, and look into regulations by world governments to combat tax evasion and illegal transactions.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies

In financial trading, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin use decentralization, traceability, and anonymity features to perform transactional activities. These digital currencies, using the emerging blockchain technologies, are forming the basis of the largest unregulated markets in the world. This creates various regulatory challenges, including the illicit purchase of drugs and weapons, money laundering, and funding terrorist activities. This chapter analyzes various legal and ethical implications, their effects, and various solutions to overcome the inherent issues that are currently faced by the policymakers and regulators. The authors present the result of an analysis of 30 recently published peer-reviewed scientific publications and suggest various mechanisms that can help in the detection and prevention of illegal activities that currently account for a substantial proportion of cryptocurrency trading. They suggest methods and applications that can also be used to identify the dark marketplaces in the future.

A Blockchain-Based Robotic Process Automation Mechanism in Educational Setting

Blockchain technology and robotic process automation are increasingly the focus of attention in research, as these are both used successfully in business, marketing, manufacturing, and finance. However, their application in educational contexts is still emerging. This chapter uses an illustrative example of an online school registration system to explore how a blockchain-based robotic process automation mechanism can resolve the inherent challenges. The proposed system allows parents to register their Grade 1 and Grade 8 children for their school of choice. There is competition for places in certain schools and a history of unfair allocation of educational resources; hence, there is mistrust. To counter this threat, this study proposes a blockchain-based robotic automation process mechanism to fairly and transparently allocate educational resources. It recommends that further design science research be conducted in which the blockchain is supplemented by additional technological processes to enhance data-sharing in educational settings.

End-to-End Tracing and Congestion in a Blockchain

Modern supply chain applications are complex systems that play an important role in many different sectors. Supply chain management systems are implemented to handle increasing complexity and flows of goods. However, most of these systems are also increasing the complexity of providing trust and a global view of transactions in a distributed supply chain system. Blockchain technology introduces a new architectural style to support the traceability and trust of transactions performed by participants in a network. This chapter uses this emerging technology to realize a supply chain use case from JLP Meats in the UK with improved transparency, trust, and end-to-end querying while discussing potential challenges of realizing large-scale enterprise blockchain applications. The process of farm-to-fork is implemented and tested for traceability, item recall, block analysis, congestion enabling food safety, and sustainable agriculture. Potential challenges are highlighted in complex supply chains that need heterogeneous trade compliance and scalability.

Blockchain Technology in the Automotive Industry

Even though the automotive industry was among the key players of the industrial revolution in the last century, striking transformations experienced in other sectors did not have significant repercussions on this industry until a few years ago. However, general advancements in technology and Industry 4.0 have presented new opportunities for the reconfiguration of the business environment. Developments in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, in particular, have attracted the attention to what is known as blockchain technology. Several successful examples of blockchain applications in different industries have tempted the automotive industry to be rapidly involved with efforts in this direction. As a consequence, the application of the blockchain technology to highly diverse areas in the automotive industry was set in motion. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the application of blockchain technology in the automotive industry, to analyse its advantages and disadvantages, and to demonstrate its successful in general.

Blockchain Reinventing the Healthcare Industry

The fragmented and disorganized nature of data in healthcare poses a variety of challenges to scientific research and medical applications. This mainly stems from the lack of traceability of transactions, complex disconnected networks, and lack of data interoperability. This complexity leads to difficulties in conducting research and clinical trials, and to the problem of counterfeit drugs in the market. This triggers lack of availability and accessibility of data for researchers and medical experts. Blockchain technology offers comprehensive solutions to these problems, and hence it has been of enormous interest in the healthcare sector. Blockchain technology with its innate transparency, traceability, data security, and distributed nature can help to overcome the data related problems in healthcare. This chapter provides an overview of the use of blockchain in the healthcare industry and explores various use-cases and applications. This chapter also discusses case-studies and various challenges faced while adapting blockchain in the healthcare industry.