TopIntroduction
Blockchain technology is a decentralized data storage technology originally proposed by the illusive creator Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 as the back-end for the celebrated crypto-currency Bitcoin (Nakamoto, 2008). (Later on, an Australian Computer Scientist, Craig Wright claims himself as Satoshi Nakamoto in his blog, the truth is yet to be proved). During the initial days, the world was concerned only about the currency, Bitcoin and it’s mining while the underlying technology was neglected. The initial releases of Blockchain, known as Blockchain 1.0 focused mainly on crypto-currencies and micro-payments and provided less scope for programming the chain of business applications. The common man was unaware of the potential and possibilities of blockchain technology as the Bitcoin and its market cap overshadowed the underlying technology. Later on, with the release of Blockchain 2.0, the focus got shifted from currencies to the value based services and applications. Blockchain 2.0 enables the creation of programmable, scalable, distributed, trust infrastructure which facilitates wide variety of services including smart contracts, public ledger systems, Dapps (decentralized applications), DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and DACs (decentralized autonomous corporations). Moreover, with the advent of Blockchain 2.0, this technology came into the limelight as a potential solution for various business opportunities and the programmable smart contracts created a new dimension for self-executing applications. Blockchain technology can play a significant role in transfer of value-based digital assets across the network in a faster and cheaper manner. By leveraging the potential of distributed public ledger system, blockchain technology found its application in government institutions like public notary systems, land registrations, citizen identification services, marriage certificates, voting systems etc. Eventually, people started placing the blockchain as a disruptive technology that could possibly find “The Best Solution” for several real-world problems (Crosby et al.,2016).