Blockchain technology has evolved well past its original application as the backbone of Bitcoin. Today, distributed ledger is being deployed across many fields to address practical inefficiencies.
In essence, a distributed ledger is a shared database that stores a ever-expanding sequence of entries, called block entries. Each record contains a cryptographic hash of the prior record, forming an tamper-proof chain.
Self-executing contracts represent one of the most transformative use cases of Web3. Such automatically executing agreements autonomously execute the rules of an contract when specific conditions are satisfied.
Financial services has been one of the earliest adopters of distributed ledgers. Decentralized finance protocols allow peer-to-peer lending eliminating the need for conventional banks.
While the potential is significant, blockchain faces real hurdles. Transaction throughput, environmental impact, and legal ambiguity continue to be significant issues that should be resolved before mainstream use can occur.