How can Europe benefit from blockchain technologies?

Blockchain is the best known distributed ledger technology. A ledger keeps a final and definitive record of transactions. Transactions on a blockchain are not centrally stored but instead identical copies of all transactions are kept on decentralised ledgers at the same time. These data are moreover encrypted. Records, once stored, cannot therefore be tampered with on one of these ledgers without leaving a track. This is an essential difference to databases that are managed by a central operator.