The Blockchain: The Future Of Business Information Systems?
Historians believe that early modern man (homo sapiens) persevered over competing humanoid forms via their ability to unite in large numbers due to a shared belief in something powerful and intangible (Harari). Those early shared beliefs were in gods; but later in the course of humanity a shared medium of exchange, a "currency", forged a common belief in something powerful and intangible. Now "we may be at the dawn of a new revolution" which started with the digital bitcoin currency (Swan). Bitcoin allows the instant certified transfer of money electronically between possibly unrelated and distant parties without the need for any intermediary trusted authority (i.e. bank); the certification is via an indestructible "public ledger" of the transfer transactions. But it is really the technology behind bitcoin, something called the "blockchain", which is the driving factor for this new revolution. What blockchain did for currency, it may do to an even greater extent for many other areas of business and their supporting information systems. In this paper, we discuss the blockchain technology and the reasons why it may replace tradition business information systems. We also explore and illustrate this in more detail for one of the many possible business disciplines in which the blockchain will be utilized - the accounting discipline.