It would appear you cannot turn your back on blockchain for a moment without the imminent threat of global domination. “Empires are going to be built” prophesises Business journalist Laura Shin on her crypto podcast Unchained. ¨This is a world where you can make money out of thin air if you know how to do it.¨ As I momentarily ponder the prospect of making money out of thin air my phone beeps to warn me, via the Asia Times, that ‘Beijing is building a blockchain empire’. Worried that Beijing might have gotten the jump on me I tune into Carter Thomas’ successful crypto currency podcast, the title of which promises empire building that is closer to home, Coin Mastery-Building your Crypto Currency Empire.
However it is Quartz magazine that marks itself out as the philosopher of the bunch by asking the question, which at this stage must be on everyone’s lips, ‘Who would win the world cup of blockchain?, complete with ranking system and scoring criteria attached should your favourite team have lost on penalties in the semi-final and you wanted to question the referee.
It would appear that journalistically we have reached peak blockchain and the only thing left to do is to pick up our virtual swords and conquer the fertile new lands promised by its inception. However just as a mob of hyped up young firebrands are assembling to take on what the press are predicting could be the greatest game changer since public access to the internet itself I can’t help but imagine one Monthy Pythonesque voice at the back asking, ‘yes, but what is it and what does it do?’
A Blockchain is a series of blocks of information connected together using cryptography (a series of codes which secure the information contained inside). A blockchain is resistant to alteration of any information contained within it as one change to one block would subsequently alter the information contained in all other blocks.
To make such an alteration would therefore depend on having the consensus of the majority of members thus making the information held particularly resistant to manipulation.
So effectively blockchain is a means of storing decentralised, in the sense that no one has control of it, data in the cloud that is incorruptible.
Blockchain technology is synonymous with Bitcoin and the rise of other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Ehthereum. This as a result of Satoshi Nakomoto, the pseudonym used by the creator(s) of Bitcoin, who was the first to apply blockchain technology to form the first digital currency in 2008. It is hard to overestimate the potential effects of Nakomoto’s innovation.
Blockchain technology makes cryptocurrencies possible because they act like a public digital ledger, just like a traditional bank’s ledger, which records transactions in an open, permanent and public way. Thus giving the active members easy access to their financial dealings with other members and legal recourse if they feel they have been mistreated in anyway.
More Efficiency? Ease of use? The removal of the middleman?
Well, yes and no. Blockchain technology easily has the potential to bring all three to countless industries. The difference is that its potential doesn’t stop there.
Blockchain technology doesn’t threaten the removal of just any middlemen. We are no longer lamenting the death of the local record store because people are opting to use Spotify instead. We are no longer discussing the end of cable television as people log on to Netflix instead.
Unless the banks can learn to love and harness blockchain technology to improve their services the middlemen who face possible extinction are none other than those financial institutions themselves.
If you have ever seen the Christmas classic ¨It’s a Wonderful Life¨ starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, you may remember the scene in which the there is a run on the bank and George convinces his customers not to take out their money out and to trust him to keep their investments safe (and if you haven’t or would like a reminder here is the scene in question).
Any bank, or in this case currency, is based on one thing. Trust. If the necessary trust is there for people to participate in a decentralised, digital currency that exists entirely in the cloud it threatens to destabilise the traditional ‘too big to fail’ financial behemoths and leave them open to attack by younger, more agile pretenders to the thrones.
Despite blockchain being synonymous with the rise of the cryptocurrencies to the extent that, initially, its other potential implementations were somewhat marginalised in comparison, the reality is that the potential for blockchain innovation is as broad as the ingenuity of those in a position to implement it and new start-ups, and new divisions of established companies offering services based on blockchain innovation, are springing up and receiving massive investment.
Blockchain technology lends itself specifically towards the innovation of supply chains and Provenance is a company utilising blockchain technology so that consumers can track the journey of their purchases. In a world where sustainability is ever growing in importance the possibility of checking how the clothes we wear and the food we eat were produced and transported to us could usher in a new era of conscientious consumers and, therefore, producers.
Deedcoin is a cryptocurrency exclusively for the buying of real estate that works on a 1% rather than the traditional 6% commission rate.
The above are just a sample of the wide-ranging innovations taking place as a result of blockchain technology.
The job market in blockchain is currently booming. Blockchain software developers have taken the premier position as the most demanded developer skill in this Upwork report from November 2017 with this article from the London Financial News entitled from June 7th 2017 entitled “Blockchain Salaries go parabolic: ‘you can make a fortune”, cites salaries for developers as ranging between 250,000 to 500,000 British pounds a year.
Neither is it an imperative to be at the forefront of writing code to benefit from the blockchain boom. The newness of this technology and the high market demand for employees makes it possible for those with transferable skills to enter the blockchain industry with relatively little experience.
Right now having three years’ experience is a rarity and with a solid six months and transferable skills you are already an employment prospect. And as with any profound technological innovation rewards will be there for those who find a unique way to utilise or react to the changes brought about by it in the market place. An example being the company Wachsman formed in 2015 with an aim of providing public relations specifically for the Blockchain industry and currently employs one hundred staff in its offices in New York, Dublin and Singapore.
So is it worth getting a job in blockchain? Well, yes, but more to the point are you moved by its possibilities? The blockchain technology boom has been compared to the dot.com bubble of the early nineties and it’s true many of the promising start ups with the appearance of the next big thing will fail. That’s the nature of the market place. However at the moment blockchain represents the attraction of the unknown, the thrill of adventure and the prospect of facing and forming the future.
Written for CareerJunction by Mark Dempsey.
