Author: Moe Levin

The recent frenzy surrounding bitcoin opens the door to a bigger, more important discussion: What is blockchain?

For starters, it is the technology that powers cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, but it only gets more complicated and more significant from there.

Blockchain is what it sounds like: a series of connected blocks. Compounded batches of information make up each block and, when linked together, they create a permanent digital record-keeping system. As it relates to bitcoin, each block is a series of transaction information that’s been verified. The blockchain created then represents the history of bitcoin’s movement from user to user.

But how blockchain works does not provide quite explain what it is. That can be answered in a number of ways:

·       Transparent. Blockchain ledgers work because they aren’t owned by any one entity. Blocks can’t be added to the chain until they’ve been verified by a series of nodes, a network of computers. Each of those computers has access to the ledger and check it to make sure funds, for example, are authentic and that they don’t exist in more than one wallet at a time. For the computers to conduct these checks, the ledger has to be open to all, making it a transparent system.

·       Secure. The transparency of the ledger lends itself to maintaining security. Everyone can see it, so everyone will be able to detect any wrongdoing or unsavory behavior. The user community policing the ledger will tolerate no deletions, copies, or falsifications. It’s not particularly lucrative to fiddle with the integrity of the ledger, either, given the resources required to compute blockchain equations.

·       Global. From the Chinese government to refugee camps in Jordan, blockchain is both on the horizon and in action. Blockchain provides peer-to-peer data conference for all agencies and organizations who use it. Global problems can now be solved on a mass scale thanks to the world-shrinking power of blockchain.

Without being too sensational, blockchain is the future. It is simultaneously a digital historian and technological pioneer, keeping records of the current and laying the foundation for innovation. Though its beginnings were in the financial realm, Blockchain has transcended that singular identity to encompass a litany of prospects in every sector.

Humanitarian

Without identification or a bank account, people become functionally invisible. Programs like ID2020 Alliance and Everex are making it possible for the unrecognized and the unbanked to regain their visibility in society — thanks to blockchain. Inherently transparent, blockchain rescues vulnerable populations like refugees from exploitation as a result of humanitarian aid corruption, as well, in programs like Building Blocks.

Financial

True to its roots, blockchain is bringing the financial sector along into the revolution. The use of cash is declining in several countries, but even where it isn’t, entry barriers prevent investment in capital such as real estate. Blockchain will allow fractional ownership, and transparent peer-to-peer rental agreements and exchanges to be carried out efficiently monetarily and chronologically.

Leisure

Blockchain is far from being all work and no play. Travel companies are looking at blockchain to simplify payment procedures and cut out the many middlemen that are woven into current travel operations. Blockchain-enabled security precautions could prevent fraud or baggage loss, streamlining the background processes that make traveling a hassle.

Gaming is likewise poised to benefit from blockchain technology. Games have become their own markets of profit and loss, with networks of gamers actively seeking in-game earnings that can be costly. But those currently-illiquid assets could be given new life — and greater longevity — as blockchain is integrated. Much like travel, the current systems established within the gaming sector for transactions and entrusted information are fragile to fraud.

Blockchain’s public ledgers will work to improve those conditions for gamers and travelers alike.

By seeking to answer a simple question — What is blockchain? — we begin to see that the matter that is truly pressing in this sector is something else entirely: What will it be?

Moe Levin is responsible for the first global bitcoin conference in Amsterdam and is the founder of the North American Bitcoin Conference as the CEO of Keynote — a global events company. Levin serves as an advisor and board member for a number of blockchain companies including Unsung and RSK Labs. He is also a Co-Founder of Kingsland University — School of Blockchain, the world’s first accredited blockchain training program. To find out more about how the Kingsland University — School of Blockchain. Find out more about Kingsland’s leading-edge education at KingslandUniversity.com