Blockchain and Its Applications – A Detailed Survey

Blockchain is being termed as the fifth disruptive innovation in computing. In simplest words, it is a distributed ledger of records that is immutable and verifiable. Since its advent in 2008, blockchain as a concept has been used in various ways. The largest impact or application is seen as a multitude of cryptocurrencies that have sprung up. However, with time, it has become clear that blockchain as a technology is likely to have an impact much wider than just the cryptocurrency domain and much deeper than simple distributed ledger storage. This detailed survey intends to bring together all the key developments so far in terms of putting blockchain to practice. While the most common adoption of blockchain is in finance and banking domain, there are experiments being conducted by many big players in various other domains. This paper will explore the various domains where blockchain has had an impact and where future implementations may be expected.