Blockchain: Concept and Emergence

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Internet of Things (IoT) are incredible instances of the technology paradigm and have brought about revolutionary changes in the communication, internet, and digital sectors coalesced into one and induced a landslide shift in the lifestyle of mankind. But the privacy concerns of the individuals can be trustfully and transparently addressed only by the use of ingenious contemporary technology, the Blockchain. Blockchain is a kind of distributed ledger technology that uses a peer-to-peer, distributed network to make a continuous, growing chain of time-stamped records to form a digital ledger. It is decentralized, which means that it can not be controlled by a central authority. It has numerous advantages like transparency, immutability, decentralization and can be incorporated in almost any sector of the society to increase the security of the transactions being carried out. This chapter predominantly focuses on the concepts of Blockchain and aims to do a comprehensive survey on its advantages and applications and also highlights the future prospects because even though it is so popular today, this technology is still in its infancy.

Keywords: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Decentralization, Distributed Ledger Technology, Immutability, Internet of Things, IoT, ML, Machine learning, Transparency.