Blockchain in Education Lifelong Learning
It is hard to imagine that a little more than a decade has passed since Satoshi Nakamoto published a concept paper in 2008 regarding the development of a digital currency that lives only on the internet and not backed by the government called Bitcoin cryptocurrency. In 2013, Vitalik Buterin proposed a similar blockchain technology but which included the concept of smart contracts that executes code to do a variety of things including the creation of cryptocurrencies. This spawned the birth of numerous other cryptocurrencies in addition to bitcoin.
The core technology behind this is called blockchain. The internet provided the value of being able to transmit information instantly, which was not possible before. The Blockchain technology provides the value to transmit value instantly, which was currently not possible before the bitcoin cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is just one example of the potential of this technology. Tech experts everywhere are touting the power of this new technology referring to it as the 4th industrial revolution ushering in a new internet or Web 3.0. While much of the discussion has been about the financial industry because blockchain was birthed as a result of the collapse of the financial market in 2008, other industries, to include education have already embraced this technology, which is expected to be disruptive with respect to how we view life-long learning.