The Web, All Over Again

Blockchains are new technology layers that rewire the Internet and threaten to side-step older legacy constructs and centrally served businesses.

At its core, a blockchain injects trust into the network, cutting off some intermediaries from serving that function and creatively disrupting how they operate.

Metaphorically, blockchains are the ultimate non-stop computers. Once launched, they never go down, and offer an incredible amount of resiliency, making them dependable and attractive for running a new generation of decentralized services and software applications.

The Business Blockchain by William Mougayar

In this book, Mougayar makes two other strategic assertions. First, the blockchain has polymorphic characteristics; its application will result in a multiplicity of effects. Second, we shouldn’t ask ourselves what problems the blockchain solves, because that gives us a narrow view on its potential. Rather, we should imagine new opportunities, and tackle even more ambitious problems that cross organizational, regulatory and mental boundaries.

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Whether Bitcoin is or isn’t a legitimate currency is, according to Brian Kelly, next to irrelevant.

With its ability to record every Bitcoin transaction and securely transfer value over insecure networks,

the blockchain is a game changer.

Ultimately, The Bitcoin Big Bang answers one of the most pressing questions in finance, business, government, and beyond: “What is Bitcoin and how will it change the world?”

It is a story of evolution.

It is the evolution of currencies, payment systems, how money is used, financial services, and even the way business is organized. It is that moment when you realize the world has changed, permanently and forever. Evolution is a laborious grind, until BANG – everything changes at once.

Eventually mainstream products, companies and industries emerge to commercialize it; its effects become profound; and later, many people wonder why its powerful promise wasn’t more obvious from the start. What technology am I talking about? Personal computers in 1975, the Internet in 1993, and – I believe – Bitcoin in 2014. ~ Marc Andreessen, inventor of the Web browser and cofounder of Netscape

From the book:

The Bitcoin Big Bang: How Alternative Currencies Are About to Change the World

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I can get rich, and then donate some of my money to good causes.

Why not run a company that concentrates on improving social and environmental conditions through its daily operations instead? That’s a lot more efficient, and ultimately more satisfying.

We often justify the unscrupulous actions of modern robber barons because they contribute money to philanthropy and the arts.

From a purely economic perspective, philanthropy is inefficient.

A person who has accumulated billions of dollars and in doing so has caused others to lose their jobs, closed the door of small businesses, or ravaged the environment, and then donates a small percentage of his fortune to correcting those problems or to the arts, would have served the world far better by making fewer profits while increasing employment, supporting small businesses, and insisting that his executives practice good environmental stewardship.

Excerpt from the book published by John Perkins back in November 1, 2011

Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the Global Economy IMPLODED — and How to Fix It

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Why should I give a damn about bitcoin?

Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will, ~ Nelson Mandela

If we focus narrowly on, say, the 2 or 3 percent savings that bitcoin offers on each credit-card transaction fee – a benefit that would typically go to merchants – it is hard to get excited about a “crytocurrency revolution”. But when we consider that the world economic output runs at $87 trillion a year, and think of how much of that is hived off by the same banks and financial toll-collectors that cryptocurrencies bypass, it’s possible to imagine many trillions of dollars in savings.

Each of us can stake a claim on those funds, indirectly via the employment and income opportunities that businesses might create with what they save on financial costs, or directly via the lower interest rates, bank fees, and transaction charges by our bank and credit-card accounts.

The day you started earning and spending money is the day you began repeatedly handling over slices of that money to these middlemen, often adding up to millions of dollars over a single person’s lifetime.

Crytocurrency promises to stop that outflow and put the money back in your pocket. This, in the most basic way, is bitcoin’s value proposition – the “Why should I care?” that some people was looking for.

Recommended Readings:

The Age of Cryptocurrency

Looking for a good book that explains bitcoin? Check out The Age of Cryptocurrency, by Paul Vigna and Michael J Casey.

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