The much-hyped blockchain is essentially a database architecture or a ledger system. But it is much more than that, says Erica Pimentel, an assistant professor of accounting at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University.

In this video, Prof. Pimentel explains what makes blockchain special: it’s immutability and distributed architecture that gives it greater reliability. Blockchain was developed to underpin the bitcoin cryptocurrency but has grown to support decentralized finance, supply chain management, nonfungible tokens and other applications in faster, cheaper and more secure ways than has been done up to now. They will dramatically change our idea of contracts, Prof. Pimentel says, perhaps cutting out lawyers and accountants from these transactions. In future, the technology will even give artists more power over the re-sale of their works.

For the next few years, blockchain will generate most interest in finance, logistics and large companies but, down the line, smaller and medium-sized enterprises will benefit. “We have yet to conceive what the endgame of blockchain will be.”