By now everyone has heard of blockchain, and hopefully you have even been lucky enough to come across some of the more innovative blockchain nuances, such as a blockchain for the production of organic bananas.
Diving a bit deeper, blockchain is a protocol used to guarantee the exchange of valuable information and data, such as that used in a financial transaction. Similar to how TCP as a network protocol uses mechanisms such as handshaking and acknowledgments to guarantee delivery of network packet information, blockchain uses mechanisms such as data hash matching and distributed ledgers to guarantee delivery.
Another very important value of blockchain is not just the process and mechanisms used to deliver high value data, but the ability to provide a forensically auditable trail of the transaction that attests and verifies that the exchange of high value information took place. Blockchain can serve as an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties in a verifiable and permanent manner. It can be used as a source of verification for reported transactions. So, instead of asking clients for bank statements or sending confirmation requests to third parties, auditors can easily verify the transactions on publicly available blockchain ledgers such as http://www.blockchain.info or http://www.blockexplorer.com.
