The potential applications of cryptocurrencies and its underlying blockchain technology have been hailed by almost all the industries so far. Blockchain technology is probably the most versatile of all the technologies so far, right after the internet perhaps. Even though its potential applications in various industries has already been endorsed by experts in both cryptocurrency and other fields, there are still doubts among select few.
A leading online tech magazine, in one of its recent article, claims that the digital currency and its underlying technology are “solutions that are looking for problems”. The publication goes on to explain its headlines further by mentioning the slow progress in the development and implementation of blockchain technology by banking and financial institutions. It also points out the slowdown of venture capital investments into blockchain based companies across the world.
The arguments presented by the publication follows another publication that referred to Bitcoin as “boring”. But for those who understand Bitcoin and the blockchain technology better, the scenario is completely different. It is not the technology to be blamed, but the industry. In order to explain blockchain in simple terms, it can be referred to as a combination of conventional database and Bittorrent (just for the argument sake). Drawing parallels to conventional databases like SQL, MySQL, MongoDB etc., even blockchain can be used as a support structure for a variety of applications. The distributed ledger technology offers far superior security, transparency, and integrity than other conventional options.
It is also worth mentioning that the Internet wasn’t really within everyone’s reach during its initial years. The world took its own time to familiarize itself with the worldwide web and then one day, everything went online. The same scenario is applicable for the blockchain technology as well. Banking and financial industries are juggernauts that have been following a specific set of technologies for decades. Changing the course of a heavy object is not as easy as steering a car and the wide spread adoption of blockchain technology is going to take its time. But once it does, we can safely say that it will be as common as MySQL based web applications in the present day.
Also, VC funds alone can’t be the definite indicator of the industry’s progress. It is worth considering that many multibillion dollar banking and financial industries are working on their own blockchain solutions. These companies do not necessarily need outside investments. Also, being open source technology, the costs of developing software and applications are not as high as those involving proprietary software and technologies. Also, one look at the upcoming blockchain platforms should be sufficient to show that new upcoming startups are opting for crowdfunding through ICOs instead of approaching VCs.
The bird’s eye view of the blockchain industry is much different from the ground reality. Contradictory to popular belief, the ground reality in crypto-sector is much better and promising than the bird’s eye view.
Ref: QZ | Image: Shutterstock