How blockchain could change your life

One of the many buzzwords at this week's CES technology show is "blockchain" — the technology underpinning the bitcoin craze. While bitcoin is the flash of the moment, there's growing excitement about how this concept can move beyond digital currency and affect people's lives. Simply put, blockchain is like a ledger book that can be group-edited by people in the cloud. There's no central company or government that has to verify a transaction, which means thing can move more quickly. As changes are made, it keeps a public log of what changed, when and how. For that reason, it's very difficult to fake a change or gain access to the log if you're not supposed to. The records also aren't tied to your name, so it makes blockchain another more secure way that people can exchange data. “It’s not really about bitcoin at all,” said Halsey Minor, a founder of CNET and Salesforce who’s now focusing his attention on blockchain and video. Blockchain is as important a new technology as the Internet, he said, and anyone who doesn't see that "is missing the point."