Blockchain technology is already being used and developed for many important and impressive applications, and much more is yet to be discovered. Blockchains use distributed work to obtain consensus for changes to a distributed ledger. Because of their nature, blockchains are incredibly powerful tools that can be used in many realms and applications.
They offer security in that they are almost unhackable; any attempted unauthorized changes to the system are immediately obvious to the entire system because it is built on agreement and consensus among its many nodes. Because this structure gives each addition to the ledger, and the record in the ledger, a high degree of integrity and security, future applications of blockchains are being researched in various fields around the world.
It could help securities markets clear transactions faster and at reduced cost, it could help political or corporate voting results be more reliable and transparent, it could change the landscape for digital rights to music and other creative works, it could be the primary way that information about identity or credit history is stored, or it could be used to do many other things that have yet to be imagined.
Not only can blockchains maintain a permanent record that is nearly impossible to change, but Smart Contract and Distributed Application technology open up space for blockchains to perform higher-level functions than merely solving 256-bit encryptions to validate transactions. It is likely that blockchains will become part of many systems in the future and will be boring and cliche to the next generation to grow up with it.