From big data to blockchain: Promises and challenges of an all-encompassing technology in education

Blockchain is regarded as the next technology-mediated mega-transformation after the ongoing ‘Google’s System of the World’ (Gilder, 2018). This chapter critically reviews the extant studies and theories on blockchain technology and its influence on education. Blockchain in education aims to enhance objectivity, validity and full control of a specific information without being compromised by economic, health or political instabilities. Education blockchain promises, among others, a greater control over financing and investing in education, implementing instructional projects, a certification system and learning. Blockchain with its distributed ledgers would set the standards to ‘crypto-instruction’ and ‘crypto-educational administration’ that would be recognized across organizational or national borders, yet, neither transparent nor clearly sustainable. Therefore, it is argued, blockchain technologies in and for education are a credible augur of an upcoming paradigm shift in human experience, yet, they are no exception to the general principle of magnification and the reduction of technology (Ihde, 1993). Copyright © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.