THE BLOCKCHAIN
You mean Bitcoin?
Not quite.
You might be vaguely familiar with Bitcoin. Maybe your Conspiracy Theorist Cousin brought it up at that one time?
Now, I'm not speculating on the future value of Bitcoin or endorsing it directly. I'm referring to the Blockchain technology - the underlying platform which runs Bitcoin.
I've been following this for a few years now and what I see is that this revolutionary technology is apparently here to stay. It will only continue to grow more mainstream in the coming decade. In the past few years, billions of venture capital funding have been pouring into all sorts of companies working on interesting and important applications of the Blockchain.
Not quite.
You might be vaguely familiar with Bitcoin. Maybe your Conspiracy Theorist Cousin brought it up at that one time?
Now, I'm not speculating on the future value of Bitcoin or endorsing it directly. I'm referring to the Blockchain technology - the underlying platform which runs Bitcoin.
I've been following this for a few years now and what I see is that this revolutionary technology is apparently here to stay. It will only continue to grow more mainstream in the coming decade. In the past few years, billions of venture capital funding have been pouring into all sorts of companies working on interesting and important applications of the Blockchain.
SO WHAT IS THE BLOCKCHAIN?
The Blockchain is essentially an incredibly secure, pseudo-anonymous, peer-to-peer network which facilitates transactions for a mere fraction of the cost typical today.
This is particularly of note in the financial sector for money transfer services provided by banks, credit cards, PayPal and the like.
This is particularly of note in the financial sector for money transfer services provided by banks, credit cards, PayPal and the like.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
Approximately 1.5 billion "unbanked" people in the developing world would directly benefit from access to this essentially free, secure, easy-to-use (and much faster) method of banking - particularly in regard to remittance services and small daily financial transactions.
But it's not just the world's unbanked who will benefit, this also has implications for smart contracts and cases in which proof-of-work or multi-signature validation are required.
But it's not just the world's unbanked who will benefit, this also has implications for smart contracts and cases in which proof-of-work or multi-signature validation are required.
WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING?
Among many, one notable quote comes from former senior Vice President at Visa, John McDonnell, “We see Bitcoin as probably the biggest innovation in FinTech since the introduction of electronic payments — going back to the magnetic stripe card and Visa.”
Are you paying attention?
Are you paying attention?
And also,
