Blockchain: Beyond Cryptocurrency

Abstract

As cities become more digitally governed, centralized infrastructures face growing risks across identity, safety, and data domains. This chapter reframes blockchain as a foundational trust protocol for urban resilience, emphasizing its core features: immutability, decentralization, transparency, and consensus, as tools to address systemic privacy and security challenges. It explores blockchain's role in securing digital identities, logging infrastructure events, and enabling auditable governance. Real-world deployments in land registries, voting, procurement, and incident response, especially in Asia and Europe are analyzed. Privacy-preserving techniques like zero-knowledge proofs and decentralized identity are also examined. The chapter highlights integration hurdles such as interoperability, regulatory gaps, and ethical tensions, while outlining emerging trends like Blockchain 4.0, quantum-safe cryptography, and DAO-led civic participation. It offers a roadmap for decentralized citizen-centric governance in smart cities.