What does "block chain" really mean and how does it relate to construction?
JLC's sister publication Concrete Construction offers helpful answers in an interview with Andrew Lindsey, a market strategist with the Alpha Corporation who sits on the steering committee for the Construction Blockchain Consortium (CBC) of the University College London, and will be leading a session titled “How Rapidly Changing Technology is Impacting Infrastructure Design and Construction” at the Infrastructure Imperative conference in Cleveland this fall.
Here's what blockchain is not: "Using blockchain interchangeably with cryptocurrency and bitcoin is very dangerous," Andrew explains. "The original use for bitcoin was for nefarious purposes [buying illegal goods or funding illegal activities], so now there’s a thought association that comes with it. That could be the reason the technology is delayed: Decision-makers may see it as a deviance tool rather than a high-utility streamlining tool."
Here's a more constructive way of thinking about it:It's a digital ledger of transactions between two or more parties that is immutable, tamper-proof, decentralized, and encrypted. .. It’s all time-stamped, can’t be touched or broken into, and irreversible. That’s the jump off point for construction applications.
