The words Bitcoin, Ethereum, cryptocurrency seem to be the buzz these days. With the rise of Bitcoin, it has caused a lot of hype and a modern-day gold rush. With some cryptocurrency seeing quick and steep growth, many are flocking to this is new system of money to see if they can also reap the benefits. The main hero giving us the ability to trust the system is Blockchain technology.
Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger technology. In simple terms, it is public ledger that all parties hold and it consists of the all the transaction that have ever happen within a system. In way, you can verify and authorize new transaction by comparing all the ledgers.
Even though Blockchain was popularized by Bitcoin, it has many other uses other than for cryptocurrency. In a sense, Blockchain can be compared to administrative record work, so anything that requires record keeping and constant accounting of assets can be replaced with a cost-effective way, Blockchain. Currently, we are seeing Blockchain being used in finance for bank transactions, mobile payments, shipping (a very successful example). We are also seeing some experimentations done in healthcare, company access portals, and in the energy industry.
If it such a powerful tool, why isn’t being widely used or rather, what is holding it back?. One, it is simply misunderstood, and the idea is still in its infancy. There are enough developers working on creating new implementations, creating improved model, or doing research. It is every expensive and hard for everyone get access to the software. Two, just like everything new thing, it will take a long time before it can be adopted. Any rapid change to the system could cause unforeseen consequence. This prevents companies and other organization from adopting it to quickly.
I love the idea of Blockchain technology and its possibilities. Even though, I really don’t know too much about how it works, but I get the gist. I feel like this could potentially bring an aspect of security to the internet of things. With so much data being transmitted online, making ledger that track where data is going would be awesome. The system could authorize “data” transactions, keep track of where the data is going, and keep the data with the selected parties. Perhaps, the system could actively respond to hacks. If the system sees that the data transaction was hacked, it could automatically change protocols, codes, etc…
Even though Blockchain is really slow in its growth, I can see that it going to be like TCP/IP was for the internet.
Mearian, Lucas. “What Is Blockchain? The Most Disruptive Tech in Decades.” ITworld, Computerworld, 18 Jan. 2018, www.itworld.com/article/3191077/security/what-is-blockchain-the-most-disruptive-tech-in-decades.html.