Blockchain Technology: The New Disruptor
Blockchain technology is currently disrupting the 'normal' in several industries ranging from health care systems, supply chain, sport, creative arts, elections & voting, and majorly banking & finance
Technological innovations have always been the driving force behind every industrial revolution, and industrial revolutions as we know from past events are disruptive in nature.
The economist, Andrew McAfee, pointed out that the 4th industrial revolution would create income inequality, where those with high-level skills are winners, and those with low-to-middle-level skills, losers.
Technologies spearheading this 4th industrial revolution include robotics, artificial intelligence, internet-of-things, 3-D printing, and most importantly, blockchain technology.
The Blockchain Way
Technology is the sum of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. - Wikipedia
Satoshi Nakamuto through the clever combination of existing technologies; peer-to-peer networks, public-key cryptography, cryptographic hash functions, and a consensus mechanism framed the first blockchain use case, Bitcoin.
The huge success of Bitcoin in ensuring security and transparency gave rise to other projects which implemented almost the same framework Satoshi used. Most of these projects became largely successful, especially in the world of cryptocurrencies where the first 'world decentralized computer' Ethereum was created.
These successes prompted more research in Blockchain technology, causing a large chunk of major players in every industry to explore possible ways of adopting it.
Blockchain technology is currently disrupting the 'normal' in several industries ranging from health care systems, supply chain, sports, creative arts, elections and voting, and majorly banking & finance. A few of these disruptions include;
The world of cryptocurrencies
The current NFT waves in sports, gaming, and creative arts
Shell's Digital Passport system
Walmart Food Blockchain powered by Hyperledger Fabric
Decentralized Finance and
Sierra Leone's blockchain voting platform
And more are expected to occur sooner or later.
Why is Blockchain Technology Considered a Disruptor?
Decentralised, Transparent, and Trustworthy
Decentralised
Blockchains run on a peer-to-peer network that is secured through cryptographic properties like merkle tree and hash functions.
Just like a family tree linked by blood, data is compiled in blocks that are sequentially linked together through cryptographic hash functions. As opposed to storing data in a centralised database, data is distributed among peers in the network. Take, for example, writing information in a paper and distributing it among hundreds, thousands or even millions of people depending on the network size. To break the system, one will need access to every paper distributed to the network, which is practically infeasible especially when the network is very large. For this reason, blockchains have no central point of failure and are unlikely for hacks.
Transparent
Transparency is another strength of blockchain systems - via of a consensus mechanism, peers in the network reach consensus before any new data is added to the ledger.
This feature enables real-time knowledge of any information or movements occurring in a blockchain. Walmart, using a supply chain blockchain (Hyperledger Fabric) designed by IBM, was able to track the origin of mangoes in 2.2 seconds, which practically takes 7 days in the US under normal conditions.
Trustworthy
The creation of the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, changed the trust game in the world with a technique termed smart contracts. Smart contracts which run on Blockchains enables two or more parties (known or unknown) to engage in a contract without trust. Sounds untrue right?
But blockchain technology wonderfully does this by capturing the contract agreements in computer protocols, which self executes when predetermined conditions are met. This means Alice doesn't have to trust Bob to keep his end of the bargain, because the self-executing computer protocol automatically ensures the contract terms are always met.
Organisational and Individual Benefits
With greater transparency, enhanced security and privacy, increased automation, improved traceability, and real-time monitoring, blockchain simplifies industrial processes and provides solutions for most industry worries.
No organisation would want to neglect a better and efficient way of carrying out its industrial activities, especially when industrial revolutions always reshuffle industry leaders.
The internet gave us Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Who will blockchain technology give to us?
P.S It might be you. Yeah, you reading this.
On the individual level, blockchain technology is distributing power over the internet. We gradually watched how the internet became a centralised web service, with companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google sharing the harvest while the average individual pays the price in privacy, cash or other forms.
But with the features of blockchain technology, we are entering a world where power belongs to the people.
This quote by Vitalik Buterin gives a perfect summary of how blockchain technology will change the world
Whereas most technologies tend to automate workers on the periphery doing menial tasks, blockchains automate away the centre. Instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, blockchain puts Uber out of a job and lets the taxi drivers work with the customer directly.
Vitalik Buterin
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