“UJ’s digital certificate system gave graduates access to their digital certificates and enabled them to share their certificates with third parties or prospective employers at no cost,” says Van Zyl. “Our new blockchain-based certificates, however, will enhance the security of our certificates even more.”
“Essentially, a blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions,” says Jaco du Toit, deputy director of the Centre for Cyber Security at UJ. “This means that the ledger that keeps track of a transaction doesn’t exist on just one computer. Instead, copies exist on a number of computers on the internet that communicate with each other to keep the relevant information in sync.”
While blockchain has become renowned for its role in cryptocurrencies, it also serves to regulate smart contracts — and it is this application that UJ has tapped into.