If You Don’t Understand Blockchain Or Think It Won’t Apply To You; Read This

A lot of people I meet don’t understand the blockchain.  It’s sort of similar to when you first heard people ask, “Why does every business give a dot com address at the end of their commercial?”.  You’d tell them that the internet was going to be big.

The internet at the beginning was a bunch of walled gardens.  It didn’t apply or work it’s way into most people’s lives.  Only geeks and scientists saw the potential.

Blockchain is at the same point the internet was in the late 1980s.

Last night at dinner, I was speaking with a person that does a lot of work in the import-export business.  We were talking about the ins and outs of the business and he started talking about putting loads on boats in China and shipping to other countries.  In many cases, no one knows who owns what when.  Does the shipper own it?  The boat?  The manufacturer?  The bank?  The receiver?  The store where it’s going?

Certainly there are reams of legal documents that have been signed which can sort it all out.  But, that costs money and you have to negotiate the differences in international laws, regulations and a myriad of other things that add to the cost.

Blockchain can solve it.

There is still a lot of development to be done.  Standards have to be developed.  This is not unlike the rise of other new technologies.  For example, Fax wasn’t possible until a standard was established.  The same is true for many standards in computing.  Even the electricity in your house had a standards battle at the beginning.  In the US, AC beat DC.

My friend William Mougayar wrote a great book, The Business Blockchain, to get people thinking about how blockchain can be used.  Yesterday he penned a blogpost that is worth reading, even for someone that has no interest in investing in blockchain.  Eventually all kinds of blockchains will work themselves into our lives.  It will be seamless, and we won’t even know it. They will make the cost of goods and services change.  They will make our lives more efficient.  They will integrate with Artificial Intelligence, robots and even common appliances in your home.  It sounds like science fiction today, but it will be reality in the next twenty years.