2For as long as commerce has existed in society, merchants and businesses have sought newinnovative technologies to leverage to obtain new revenue sources, cut costs, speed up operationalprocesses, and reduce errors. Cloud storage allowed companies to move from costly physical databackup and disk storage solutions to more secure solutions that take up less space.Radio-frequencyidentification (RFID) allowed companies to move away from insecure and often incorrect manuallyupdated inventory databases to real-time inventory accounting and tracked as items move throughoutthe organization and sometimes when required after being delivered to the customer. Many companiessee blockchain technology as the next new technology that will change the game. Many companies,organizations, and institutions in several industries see blockchain technology as the key to achievingnext-level operational speed, efficiency, accuracy, and access going into the future. The following essayaccounts how Deutsche Bank came to understand the potential of blockchain technology and themethods they used to explore the possibilities.Blockchain technology is a digital ledger of information or transaction blocks linked togetherand secured with cryptography. The digital ledger of linked transaction blocks or the blockchain isdistributed to every computer or node on the network. Once a block is added to the chain, it can neverbe removed, and the data contained therein can never be altered.Due to the nature of cryptography, ifa block's data were ever changed or removed, it would become evident to the users on the network andrejected accordingly. For blocks to be added to the chain, the network users must validate and authentictransactions through the blockchain consensus model of choice. Once consensus is reached, the newblock is added to the blockchain then the process repeats when recent transactions are received. Thesecharacteristics give blockchains the ability to act as a decentralized database that provides real-timeauditing, security, and record keeping. These attributes combined with the fact that "the digital ledger oftransactions can be programmed to record virtually everything of value and importance to humankind:birth and death certificate, marriage licenses, deeds, and titles of ownership, educational degrees,
