What are the risk associated with the use of blockchain technology?

The risk associated with the use blockchain technology are as follows: (i) With the use of blockchain, organizations need to consider risks with a wider perspective as different members of a particular blockchain may have different risk appetite/risk tolerances that may further lead to conflict when monitoring controls are designed for a blockchain. (ii) The reliability of financial transactions is dependent on the underlying technology and if this underlying consensus mechanism has been tampered with, it could render the financial information stored in the ledger to be inaccurate and unreliable. (iii) In the absence of any central authority to administer and enforce protocol amendments, there could be a challenge in the development and maintenance of process control activities and in such case, users of public blockchains find difficult to obtain an understanding of the general IT controls implemented and the effectiveness of these controls. (iv) As blockchain involves humongous data getting updated frequently, risk related to information overload could potentially challenge the level of monitoring required.