Back to basics, back to blockchain. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the recent history of the internet, it’s that seemingly esoteric decisions about software architecture can unleash profound global forces once the technology moves into wider circulation,” Steven Johnson writes in the New York Times Magazine. The early internet delivered POP and HTTP, open protocols that still define how people send email and view websites. But it took the private sector to tackle mechanisms...

ORLANDO, Fla. – Blockchain is coming into many organizations to address a problem few proponents of the much-hyped online distributed ledger would expect. The problem begins with the CEO stumbling across an article on blockchain in a general business magazine. “They come back and tell the CIO, ‘Listen everyone is doing blockchain,’” Gartner Research Vice President and Fellow Ray Valdes said. It’s not much longer before the CIO calls Gartner asking about the use cases for blockchain, said Mr....