Blockchain: The revolution that hasn’t quite happened

Imagine you are out shopping and get to the till but your card doesn’t work. It turns out that your bank has had a computer meltdown and none of its customers, including you, can pay for anything.

But what if the till had access to a record, or ledger, of the balance on your credit and debit cards that was updated anytime you bought something?

Even with the bank’s systems down your card would still work at the supermarket, because the till itself would know your balance.

That is just one possibility offered by a distributed ledger, also referred to as a blockchain. The technology has been around for more than a decade and has been heavily hyped.

It sounds pretty handy, but in practice, it is hardly used. So what…