In Charles Dickens's David Copperfield (1850), an
adolescent David works long hours to learn shorthand, a type of
abbreviated language composed of symbols. The skill gives him a
fighting chance for a job as a court reporter, a sound career since
records of what was said in court needed to be kept, and writing
shorthand was the only way.
In 2017 this profession is pitifully archaic. My question is...
will the concept of annual tax returns be relegated to the realms
of fiction and history in the same way? Blockchain technology
suggests yes, and we can already see the framework being set down
here and now.
Spoiler alert
A blockchain (also called distributed ledger technology or DLT)
is essentially a permanent and immutable record of transactions
– in real time – within a network. At the root of the
blockchain are “digital ledgers” that are distributed
amongst all network participants to serve as a common source of
truth. Since the system relies on references to
