To be the distributed ledger that would make Bitcoin – the now notorious cryptocurrency – possible. And it was the currencies (plural, for Bitcoin wasn’t alone for long) it powered that brought it into the public sphere with a bang. Since then, developments to the technology mean it now goes far beyond logging transactions. It is today seen as a possible silver bullet for everything from identity theft to how to govern countries. But is all that hype distracting people from Blockchain’s true potential?
Hype VS Hope
The dizzying rise of cryptocurrencies and the dramatic events (overnight millionaires, hacks and heists) around them have made Blockchain a household concept. But here at eTrustable, we’re more interested in those aspects that moves away from the monetary. We like the big thinkers who are reimagining the way we will do business, interact, vote, cooperate…
They see the power behind the pillar concepts of Blockchain. For believers:
decentralization means taking the power away from institutions and returning it to individuals.
Immutability means an end to corruption and shady dealings.
Traceability can mean anything from getting aid into the right hands to knowing where your food really came from.
Want to feel inspired? You could do far worse than read up about liquid democracy, for instance.
Patience is a virtue
It is not an exaggeration to say that Blockchain could one day be as revolutionary as the internet has been. It is probably a mistake, however, to fall into the trap of expecting sweeping change overnight. Sure, if mainstream players find practical (and, more importantly, profitable) applications for it soon, things could snowball fast. But the revolution may be a slow one.
One reason for this is that (dare we say it?)Blockchain isn’t perfect.
To begin with, smart contracts and dapps (decentralized apps), the power behind all the potential change above, involve code. And code can be written wrong, or not perform as intended. Check out our article about point of entry for more on this.
But then, every technology has weaknesses. And they are all the more understandable here given that Blockchain is still very much in an experimental phase. And we should take another factor into account. When it comes to new tech, we tend to be guilty of a combination of misguided suspicion on one hand:
(My data would be public?! Anyone could browse my private information!?)
and unrealistic expectations on the other:
(Why aren’t abolishing all institutions? Why are we still using dollars and euros?).
If we take another promising yet much-maligned technology we can see a similar double-standard:
Autonomous vehicles have the potential to save thousands of lives each year. Tens of thousands, actually. But many are sceptical on one hand and expect miracles on the other. The majority of people seem to feel that autonomous vehicles are dangerous and not to be trusted. At the same time they expect them to completely eliminate road accidents. Anything else would constitute a disastrous failed experiment.
Focus on the here and now
But what about incremental, positive, gradual change? Small improvements to everyone’s day-to-day lives? Ways of doing business that today are difficult and costly but tomorrow could be a reality thanks to technological advances? If you ask us, hype and hysteria are the enemies of getting a grasp of the Blockchain Big Picture.
Here at eTrustable, we never lose sight of what as yet unimagined, things might be coming up. But we believe in the value of focusing on what Blockchain can do for people and businesses today.
For a new technology to be worthwhile and positive, it simply needs to be better than what went before. And when you compare smart contracts with their paper predecessors, it’s hard to argue otherwise. Right now, any company that wants to:
Before we get lost in the hype, we should take a look at those areas of our day-to-day that we can improve now. It’s then that we can begin to explore Blockchain’s genuine potential to take us there.
