Homework Answers:
How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
Blockchain enables digital provenance by providing several key capabilities that result in verification of trust (removing the requirement of trust between entities in the world). The first capability is providing the ledger to be able to track the origin of something. The second is to provide the capability to have the ledger immutable so that it can’t be copied, changed or forged in anyway. And, of course, the capability to have a network verify the authenticity of something ensures a decentralized approach is taken to validate the ledger is real. Combined, a source ledger that is immutable and decentralized enables digital provenance.
Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
Other kinds of “normal” databases are missing key capabilities such as immutability, decentralization or having multiple layers in separate capabilities that aren’t unified or combined and or can’t exchange with one another to prevent a reliable digital provenance like blockchain does. The example regarding the separation of accounting and financial transactions might be stored in real life in 2 databases - one for document storage (invoices/checks…etc.) and another for transactions (ledger accounting).
Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
Digital provenance is such a great benefit to many businesses because it provides a paradigm to be certain about the origin of something that can be put within a blockchain such as transactions, documents and any other digitalized information. This allows for trust in the ecosystem rather than relationship’s, which is especially important when interacting with a new business or customer.