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Blockchain Technology

over the past 30 years, while the same amount spent on non-digital investment has

increased GDP by just $3. By 2025, 24.3% of global GDP is projected to come from

digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

Nevertheless, the Industrial Revolution 4.0 can increase global income and boost

people’s living conditions worldwide. Nowadays, people can afford to pay to access

the digital world. It has helped improve productivity with new technology such as

the IoT, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, etc. Everybody’s everyday

life benefits. This technical breakthrough would bring greater access to the digital

world over the next few years, with long-term benefits in quality and productivity.

Transportation and communication costs are expected to decrease. Global logistics

and supply chains are expected to become more productive, and trade is expected

to minimize costs, open up new business opportunities and foster growth. Growth

in economic terms. In creating Industry 4.0, Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) forms the basis of the infrastructure for the future of innovative

industrial technologies, including industrial integration and information integration.

News plays an essential role in this regard (MacDougall, 2014; Gupta & Vyas, 2021).

Blockchain is a technology that enables data to be transferred safely based on an

incredibly complex encryption scheme, similar to the ledger of a business, where

the money is closely monitored. Blockchain is an accounting ledger running in

the digital domain in this case (Osmani et al., 2020; Cermeño, 2016; Higginson

et  al., 2019). The specific feature of blockchain is that the transmission of data

does not need an intermediary to validate the details. The most practical benefit of

blockchain technology is that it provides us with a secure, fast and low-cost solu­

tion (Drescher, 2017; Osmani et al., 2020; Mendling et al., 2018; Cermeño, 2016;

Mainelli and Smith, 2015).

Over half of today’s top managers agree that blockchain plays a vital role in

the performance of banks and financial firms, according to a survey by Accenture

(2017). Analysts have stressed that by implementing blockchain technology, banks

worldwide could save $20 billion by 2022. Some financial experts think that block­

chain will soon replace current systems for bank transfer. A customer identity system

based on a distributed ledger is another application that blockchain brings to banks.

In a simple step, blockchain enables users to verify their identity, and that informa­

tion is stored and approved in the system by other banks (Vovchenko et al., 2017).

12.2  BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The world has made great strides in all respects through the four technological revo­

lutions shown in Figure 12.1. With the aid of steam energy, mechanical manufactur­

ing facilities were built in the First Industrial Revolution. Mass manufacturing was

achieved with the help of electrical power during the Second Industrial Revolution.

The advent of electronic and information technology spurred the automation of pro­

duction during the Third Industrial Revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution’s

development pattern is that physical channel systems (CPS) have dramatically

changed production models in industries, especially in the manufacturing sector.