Building Confidence in Blockchain: Investing In Cryptocurrency And A Decentralized Future
You let out an impatient sigh as you hit the “Parking Ramp” elevator button. You had a long day of meetings at work, and your spouse just texted you that they need you to pick up a gallon of milk. You unlock your car, turn the ignition, and are off to the races. Weaving through traffic and what feels like an innumerable amount of traffic lights, you drive over a bridge that takes you to your local grocery store. You park the car, lock it, and walk through an automatic sliding door. Quickly selecting a gallon of milk, you hand your credit card over to the cashier and are soon on your way. You are ten minutes late for dinner, but you trust your spouse does in fact still love you despite your many apparent flaws.
In a simple mundane journey of a perfectly normal day, you take many leaps of faith. You trust that the elevator won’t crash, that you will arrive on the corresponding floor of the button you hit, that the car door will unlock, and that the vehicle will start. You trust others not to run a red light and smash into you when the light turns green (a rather unnerving contract with society). You trust the bridge you crossed to be properly maintained so it doesn’t collapse. You locked your car in the grocery store parking lot because you don’t quite trust that every single person has your property’s best interest in mind. You trust those automatic sliding doors to activate upon your arrival. You trusted the milk on the shelf to not be spoiled, and the cashier to not steal your credit card information. Finally, you trusted that your spouse would still love you despite arriving late to dinner!
Trust is all pervasive: inescapable in our daily transactions and movements. Trust is the most valuable resource of the twenty-first century. It is the digital oil that all infrastructure, interactions, and communication are built on top of. Every Amazon purchase, credit card swipe, and meal consumed hinges upon trusting either a source or an action will result in a desired outcome. We surround ourselves with routines, ideas, and people we trust. It is an integral part of the human experience for better or for worse.
“It is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest, that holds human associations together.” — H. L. Mencken
In my book, Building Confidence In Blockchain, you will develop an understanding of what I call the “Trust Problem.” It is intertwined with many businesses and third parties that exist to facilitate and ease the worries of our daily transactions. News alert — the current way of dealing with the Trust Problem is less than ideal! Trust is an issue that is pervasive in every transaction between humans. Blockchain is the answer to the Trust Problem, turning the tables on society’s antiquated method of transacting. Instead of trusting people, what if we can trust the guarantee of mathematics and the neutrality of automation through programming for our transactions and contracts in place of third party intermediaries?
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Blockchain technology is no different relative to the mystery surrounding it. Leveraged as a marketing term or headline buzzword, blockchain and cryptocurrency have soured for a huge percentage of the population.
But despite this, I passionately believe that real progress is being made. In the near future there will be blockchain integration into our daily technologies; it’s coming to your web browser, phone, businesses, and daily transactions. One day, we will live in a world where currency is decentralized, out of the control of any single entity. We will globally transact with people from all seven continents without needing multiple banks and intermediaries to conduct the transaction. Our exchanging of value will be peer to peer, person to person. Cryptocurrency will continue to be adopted because of its properties fiat currency cannot have — cryptocurrency is simply a better form of currency, even when you account for the trade-offs. Blockchain technology will enable use cases that will shake centralized organizations to their core; entire businesses will be run in a decentralized fashion, with participants rewarded with cryptocurrency using an automated design. We will not use “banks” in the traditional sense — the blockchain and its universal ledger will be our futuristic bank. Some people, organizations, and countries will adapt. Some won’t.
Welcome to a decentralized future.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts and stories from my book Building Confidence In Blockchain — Investing in Cryptocurrency and a Decentralized Future in an article series. Building Confidence In Blockchain launched on August 31st on Amazon, here is the link to buy it [Amazon link]!
If you want to connect, you can reach me here, via email caw34769@bethel.edu, or connect with me on social: (twitter) https://twitter.com/l_woetzel and (LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-woetzel-16936b136/ .
