MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Blockchain and the Clean, Smart Grid

Blockchain is everywhere — at least when you’re talking about media coverage. It’s the new technology that enables those wild cryptocurrencies. But some techies think it will revolutionize more than money. In short, in the words of a recent Wired overview of the technology, blockchain creates “tamperproof databases.” Every transaction in some defined system, like all trades of a particular currency, is “cryptographically signed,” meaning it’s encoded to be theoretically unhackable. Then, the “block” of data, with its crypto info, is saved on thousands of computers in parallel — so that if you wanted to tamper with a record, you’d have to change everyone’s computer at the same time.

At first blush, it’s unclear why a really good, tamperproof database will be so groundbreaking. But big companies and startups alike are exploring how blockchain could change everything from contracts, corporate compliance, and auditing to digital identity and voting, supply chain tracking, and even building a smart, carbon-free electric grid.