Applications of Blockchain in the Financial Sector and a Peer-to-Peer Global Barter Web
Abstract Recent advances in Blockchain technology has opened up a vast array of decentralized and distributed systems. The most significant contribution of this technology is it gets rid of the third-party functioning as a mediator in systems that requires trust for any kind of transaction. From this perspective, transaction of money is fundamentally an authorized third-party mediating trade of goods or services. In this chapter, we first review the conventional applications of Blockchain and next propose a novel economic system in which such value-added items are exchanged without using money and without going through a third party. In the long history of economics from ancient times, the monetized economy system today has a very short record, and it is essentially based on the existence of trustworthy central banks, governments, and organizations. However in line with the recent growing sense of decentralized systems and in keeping with unstable international affairs including the recent money crisis, it is meaningful to consider alternative economic system which can exist without going through any third party. To address this issue is one of the purposes of this chapter.