In the future, governments, companies and other institutions could be using the blockchain technology to track and verify the ownership of property records, banking records, securities and anything else posted on an open data platform. Oliver Goodenough, who directs the Center for Legal Innovation at the Vermont School of Law has been studying the potential of smart contracts and automated securities that can automatically and permanently record information and he finds that the blockchain network is the best and most robust way to do this: “Property records, particularly in the developing world, are notoriously subject to hacking. Honduras got money to do an electronic record land registry, but when they were done, many key properties were held by…