As big banks and other financial institutions continue to feel the love for blockchain technology, many of our readers have wondered how they can get in. Can a private, non-institutional investor somehow invest in the blockchain?
Answering the question requires a distinction between the bitcoin blockchain and the broader, non-bitcoin idea of blockchain technology. Think of the bitcoin blockchain as a public ledger in the cloud, not unlike a library book slip (see the above video for more). It shows every transaction made with the digital currency bitcoin; the transactions are added in bundles called "blocks," by "miners" who receive a small fee in bitcoin as incentive to add the data. (You can view that happening in-real time.) The bitcoin blockchain is public, open-source and permissionless.
What banks want to build is a private, closed blockchain, sans bitcoin, sans miners, to process their own transactions. The appeal is that it would make their systems faster and more efficient (most big banks are using old, outdated software for their record-keeping), as well as reduce friction and transfer delays. The bitcoin community is skeptical about the effort. "Having a closed, permissioned ledger run by banks might allow for better auditing, but there’s no innovation there," says Jerry Brito, executive director of the nonprofit Coin Center, which has raised funding from the biggest names in bitcoin. "You still have to go through a consortium to use the ledger."
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/here-s-how-to-invest-in-the-blockchain-180350728.html
