Blockchain: The New Financial

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@Nick_Fainlight

One trend that has continuallycaught my eye is how majorcorporations and even banksare turning to bitcoin and the

blockchain as a viablefinancial medium.

For instance, IBMrecently announced

plans to makeblockchain

technology easierfor businesses to use

for financial andnon-financial

purposes.

And Microsoft hasexpressed an interestin utilizing the power

of blockchain since2014...

Which caused a $20surge in the price of

the Bitcoin at thetime.

Apple and Google have also been tryinga number of different tacks on the

blockchain front.

Meanwhile, a number of banks are alsomaking moves toward blockchain-based

digital currency.

One of the largestcommercial banks

in South Koreainvested over $1.3million dollars intoCoinplug, a bitcoinexchange service

that carries a lot ofclout in Asia.

Closer to home,Bank of America

and paymentnetworks like

MasterCard areseeking ways ofintegrating their

services with digitalcurrency andblockchain.

Clearly, blockchain is a hot enterprise.

But what exactly is blockchain?

Although blockchainarose with bitcoin, the

technology itself isindependent of the

currency.

It allows people across the world to transferdigital currency almost instantly without

needing to trust one another or a a centralauthority i.e. a bank.

Critical to blockchain is the idea ofthe ledger.

The ledger is basically a giant record ofdigital events (transactions, value, rules,etc.) that is shared among a number of

different parties.

Aside from it being a long-running recordof everything that has transpired

(nothing can be erased), what gives theledger so much power is that it can only be

updated by consensus of the majority ofthose in the system.

Regardless of whatthe news says or

what a friend says, auser of blockchainhas clear view of

everything going onin the digital system.

There are nobarriers.

When we look at any financial crisis hasoccurred in the past, it has usually

occurred because of some asymmetry ofinformation.

But blockchain creates a system whereeveryone can see what is happening (and

has happened) all the time.

Confidential details, like the party involvedand the subject of the transaction, are kept

secret, but you can still see that when atransaction happened and how much the

transaction was for.

So how can banks benefit?

Today’s banking systems are built ofdecades-old models. Compared to

blockchain transactions, traditional banktransactions take a very long time to occurs.

And each bankkeeps its own

records of whathappens, whereas ablockchain recordwould be public to

all.

Blockchain would allow banks to operatemore quickly and with greater insight.

So...

The technology still has a ways to gobefore it is becomes universally adopted,but we are definitely seeing finance move

toward blockchain.

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@Nick_Fainlight