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## 1.1 Introduction 

Blockchain is a technology for a new generation of transactional applications that fundamentally changes the way businesses create and capture value. 

This section provides an overview of blockchain technology and how developers can build solutions and use IBM Blockchain Platform to launch, test, and move applications into production. 

We describe the benefits of running blockchain applications on a powerful platform, LinuxONE. 

## 1.1.1 What does blockchain do for a business network? 

Blockchain is a shared, distributed ledger that facilitates the recording of transactions and tracking of assets in a business network . Virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded on a blockchain network, thereby reducing risks and costs for everyone involved. 

A business network describes any group of organizations or individuals that connect with a desire to transfer or share assets. Those assets can be tangible, such as food or manufactured goods, or digital, such as music or data. Items are tracked in a common, shared ledger that is distributed across the business network. As a result, assets can be transferred between members. Each member has a record of the transaction and access to the latest version of the ledger. 

Blockchains establish trust across a business network through the combination of a distributed ledger, smart contracts, and consensus. The ledger contains the current state of assets and the history of all transactions. Transactions can only be added to the ledger, not removed. Past transactions are protected with cryptography so that they cannot be successfully tampered with. This way, changes to the ledger are final and immutable, allowing the ledger to be the source of truth within the network. 

Table 1-1describes the set of benefits that blockchain brings to the use cases for business networks. In essence, blockchain adds several types of trust to asset transfers. 

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A smart contract is an application that contains business logic. Smart contracts define all access to the ledger and are invoked by participants to query or update values of assets. 

