Why should fundraisers pay any attention to blockchains and what on earth are they anyway?
Firstly, a blockchain is “a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of transactional data records hardened against tampering and revision”. It is a system of recording transactions like the spending of bitcoins, or agreements like contracts which are held in a series of data blocks each timestamped and linked together. Hence the name blockchain. See Wikipedia:
http://bit.ly/1MCLzcM .
This does away with a middleman or central authority authorising and validating the transactions, and leaves whole industries like banking, the law, accountancy and government susceptible to disruptive change. Even the Bank of England’s chief economist has said that blockchain related currencies could replace cash, though he perhaps underestimates its potential – who now really needs banks?
http://www.fundraising.co.uk/2016/01/04/blockchains-bitcoins-fundraising/
