The statement was made by Chris Berg, Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University’s Blockchain Innovation Hub, at a seminar held in Ha Noi on Thursday.

Berg defined blockchain as a consensus over the contents of a shared programmable ledger through the use of economic incentives.

Blockchains are new economic infrastructure, a tool not just for facilitating trade but for creating new economies, with cryptocurrency and cryptoassets instead of money or value; code and protocols replacing rules; smart contracts to replace the traditional ones.

With features such as the ability to handle a large number of transactions and indelible security, blockchain is expected to be applied in many fields such as financial technology, banking, industrial production, service, supply chain and education.

For the banking and finance sector, blockchain technology with complex algorithms and high security allows disabling data modification intervention, significantly reducing the possibility of errors when comparing complex information from many different sources.

According to Berg, blockchain technology appeared about 10 years ago, although there are many effective applications, until now, the technology is still in an experimental phase of application and continues to be completed.

The development of blockchain is an opportunity for Vietnamese businesses to explore, exploit and apply in real fields to create great leaps, especially in the development of manufacturing and finance, Berg added.

Currently, enterprises in Viet Nam are also paying great attention to blockchain technology at the supply chain optimisation level as an application to monitor the flow of import and export goods and international trade transactions.

In addition, blockchain technology possesses high security features which can prevent network security risks better than the old technology in terms of hacker attacks, thus receiving special attention of many firms.

As regards the role of blockchain in the Revolution 4.0, Berg said “blockchain provides a digital infrastructure for industry 4.0; it is the infrastructure on which we will build the exciting new technology in the future like artificial intelligence, automation and the management of big data.”

“Blockchain provides opportunities for the Vietnamese financial sector to leapfrog a lot of digital systems, it means that the Vietnamese financial sector will not have to invest in some of the legacy systems that might be more prevalent in more developed countries,” Chris told Viet Nam News. — VNS