The certification of this new type of platform is a key element in the perspective of its democratization. This article aims to introduce you to the many use cases of blockchain and the challenges they represent for the audit.

Multiple application possibilities for the blockchain

Blockchain provides a solution to the problem of trust between actors of the same network with different interests. There are many companies or institutions involved in the development of solutions based on DLT, "Distributed Ledger Technology", such as the financial, supply chain or energy sectors. The cases of applications based on new means of payment through crypto-currencies or "tokens", tokens serving as transaction support, are emerging. This is done either through public blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, or by setting up so-called "permissioned" or private blockchains, that is to say limited to a set of actors where each entity has  the blockchain and therefore a version of the register. In this case, altcoin to altcoin exchange is quite important.

While the possibilities related to blockchain are numerous, some cases of application are emerging:

Funds transfer:

The Bitcoin blockchain allows the exchange and validation of an asset transfer in a decentralized and distributed way: the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The fees associated with this fund transfer no longer depend on the amount exchanged but are characterized by "fees" representing the cost of including a transaction in a block integrated into the blockchain. The "fees" necessary to exchange 0.1 bitcoin or 1000 bitcoins are therefore the same.

Traceability:

By traceability, we mean the need to know the state of an object at a given time, thus requiring the use of time-stamping techniques. Solutions to solve this type of problem exist, such as the one proposed by the company Woleet for the purpose of time-stamping a document, which then passes through a hash algorithm, generating a unique fingerprint of the input data.

Several hashes, corresponding to different documents, are condensed inside a Merkle tree, which limits the cost of transmitting information in the Bitcoin blockchain. The associated time is that of the block in which the information is included. Finding your fingerprint is simple; you just need to keep the document and the script allowing you to know the location of your hash in the blockchain.

Asset:

A "smart contract" is the technical materialization of a contract shared with all the nodes of the blockchain and executed automatically if the conditions initially agreed upon at the time of its design are met. The contract is visible to all stakeholders and must be validated beforehand for it to become effective. The enthusiasm for this technical solution responds to a market demand that sees in it the possibility of contractually binding two parties with the guarantee of the performance of this contract.

This mechanism was used as part of a public blockchain through a European consortium of the insurance, banking and finance sectors to test the management of non-cash collateral on securities lending and borrowing under blockchain.

So…are we ready to face this new era?