Prospects for Blockchain in the Energy Sector: A 2017 Update

The history of technology is full of trend-based explosions of innovation, and the rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies has been no different. Since Bitcoin was revealed worldwide in 2008, many businesses have emerged to support, develop, and build upon its technology, despite its rise from the work of cypherpunk technologists with an anti-government and anti-corporate agenda. The game theory and computer science problems Bitcoin solves to create fault-tolerant data systems have shown to be transferable to many other applications. Projects designed to generalize some of Bitcoin’s key capabilities for other uses include Ethereum and Hyperledger.