...people think the incorruptible math underlying Bitcoin’s blockchain could, if adapted properly, make business processes in a range of industries vastly more efficient.
...some industries that stand to benefit most from blockchains—finance and health care, for example—are also highly regulated with respect to data privacy and security. Some say the best course is to pursue different kinds of vehicles, like blockchains that have been modified to require permission to access.
To Bitcoin acolytes, ... “permissionless” blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, whose networks are open to anyone who wants to use and build on them, can form a new kind of Web in which we won’t have to trust banks, corporations, or governments with our valuable data.
In other words, as author and MIT blockchain researcher Michael Casey argued in a column for CoinDesk last week, open blockchains could “save us from the Internet’s original sin.”
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609313/why-people-get-religious-about-bitcoin