From Nathan Heller’s long piece in the New Yorker about Estonia.

In a blockchain system, too, every line is contingent on what came before it. Any breach of the weave leaves a trace, and trying to cover your tracks leaves a trace, too.

. . .The blockchain makes every footprint immediately noticeable, regardless of the source. (Ruubel says that there is no possibility of a back door.) To guard secrets, K.S.I. is also able to protect information without “seeing” the information itself.

That seems like a possible use case. But my guess is that it is only practical for data records that are updated infrequently. If data is being legitimately updated multiple times a day, I would think that a blockchain ledger would be too much overhead.

But maybe I am wrong. Jason Collins points to this.

ASX is replacing the system that underpins post-trade processes of Australia’s cash equity market, known as CHESS (the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System).

ASX commenced a process of evaluating replacement options for CHESS in 2015. In January 2016, ASX selected Digital Asset as a technology partner to develop, test and demonstrate to ASX a working prototype of a post-trade platform for the cash equity market using DLT (an example of which is commonly referred to as ‘blockchain’).

That will be an interesting test to follow.

Overall, what is interesting about Estonia is the way that the leadership culture apparently revolves around knowledge of information technology. I get the impression that in the U.S. if your organization backs up its data overnight that counts as having an above-average data integrity strategy.