Getting caught up in details and specifics is a classic pitfall that stalls progress in almost anything, but especially idea generation. Blockchain doesn’t have to be for currency transfer- that’s just one specific use case. The broader scope of the technology is trust. Arjun Kharpal did an excellent job illustrating this in his piece Beyond bitcoin: How the world is experimenting with the blockchain.
Blockchain creates a way for untrusted parties to transact for very low cost. Though there are issues scaling current solutions, the value of cryptographic proof for data transfer and open, trustless transaction networks is immense. The world we live in has come to depend on a few large organizations whose reputation, and the lack of a better option, serve as reason enough to keep using them. It has become a fact of life that massive consumer data breaches occur regularly, and sometime or another each of us will have to get a new credit card or change all our passwords due to the oversight of a corporate information security team.
Blockchain technology offers an affordable way to maintain control and transfer ownership of assets or data without handing over the keys to someone else. It provides a trusted method of data transmission. Votes, contracts, agreements, transactions, and transfers of custody can be kept in an immutable ledger. These elements aren’t just the building blocks for currencies, they are building blocks of the economy itself.
