The impact of Blockchain on our daily interactions and exchanges

Today, trust is the foundation of many of our everyday interactions and exchanges. We put money in a bank, trusting that it is safer there. We give information to each other on the basis that you will not share it with another person without prior permission. We also put a lot of trust in papers: money, land records, transaction information, etc. But these pieces of paper can easily be stolen, forged, or altered. Today, as we move towards the computerization of information, data can still be easily hacked and leaked.

Blockchain is a series of records or data distributed through a network of computers so that no central computer or database holds the information, instead each computer holds the data, making it a fully transparent system. The reason why blockchain is so awesome is because of its unhackability. Every trade, transaction, or record entered into a database is timestamped and verified by a large group of trusted computers before it is placed as a block in a chain of various other trades, transactions, or records. Once entered, the “block” of information cannot be modified or deleted because that means modifying or deleting the string on all computers simultaneously, which is almost impossible.

The social impact that blockchain technology can have is tremendous and can be implemented to solve many problems facing the world today in a variety of areas. In most developing countries, agriculture contributes a significant part of their GDP; however, many farmers suffer due to lack of money, lack of land, and lack of various resources needed for farming. Even if a farmer owns a large plot of land, it is often recorded incorrectly. Land titles also tend to be susceptible to fraud, as well as being expensive and time consuming to administer. Blockchain can be implemented to digitize land and farmers will no longer have to fear someone hacking into the database and committing land ownership fraud as all types of record keeping will become more efficient.

The technology will not only tell you who the current owner of the land is, but it can also tell you who the previous owner of the land was, making it extremely simple to trace the chain of title. Blockchain can correctly update records of how much land belongs to which person and how much was produced from that land, allowing farmers to obtain the correct amount of financing needed.

Among many other areas, blockchain technology can contribute to the healthcare sector. Public health record keeping is an ongoing problem in many countries due to its inaccessibility to physicians and patients. By creating a decentralized “ledger” of medical data, we can eliminate the paper trail in healthcare and make patient medical records easily and efficiently available to patients and physicians. It also eliminated the fear of losing medical records. Such a change is not only desirable but necessary where physician-patient confidentiality is increasingly important.

Currently, blockchain is mainly used in finance. Blockchain can accurately record the transfer between people, and because each transfer has little to no cost, it has the potential to disrupt today’s financial organizations that make money by charging a fee for each transaction or transfer made. This makes what is called a peer-to-peer network, where a third party is not required for a transaction to occur.

In the financial world, what that means is that if a person wants to buy something, usually the bank and the place/site they are buying from, will take a fraction of what they are paying. And because there is no fee for a transaction on the blockchain or the transaction fee is small compared to the value of the transaction, most if not all of the money goes directly to the creator or distributor of the product.

The same logic can also be applied to the music industry. In fact, it is already being implemented today. Instead of a person buying a song through a streaming service like Apple Music or Spotify, they’ll pay the artist directly and get the rights to listen and use the music. This removes the need for a ‘middle man’ and makes each transaction only between 2 entities.

These are just a few examples of where blockchain can be used to completely change how things used to be, essentially changing our lives, the economy, and our world. Blockchain is a multifaceted technology that can be applied to almost every business sector in some way. An exciting technology that can change society for the better; a change that is not only convenient but necessary.

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