While at-home investors and big-dollar funds are keeping their eyes on Bitcoin during the unprecedented economic effects the global pandemic continues to cause across the globe, crypto-experts are contemplating the obvious: Could blockchain—the technology underlying Bitcoin—be the answer to the next big pandemic?

What Is Blockchain Technology?

A blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of transactions that can be programmed to record almost anything of value. Digital data is recorded in “blocks,” each of which is assigned a unique “hash.” The hash serves as an identifying “seal” that ensures the data on the block have not been corrupted. Each block also contains on it the hash of the preceding block, which is what allows for the formation of a “chain.” If one attempts to change the data residing on a given block, a new hash will be generated for that block and the chain will be broken, since the hash of the block coming after the tampered block will no longer reflect the correct hash. This is one of the features that make a blockchain virtually “unhackable.”