Recently I had the privilege of attending the Blockchain Summit hosted in London, the UK at the Olympia Conference Center... (There's me on the right with the white shirt!)
I was lucky to see the morning talks from speakers from companies like The Royal Mint, Open Trading Network, BlockApps, RedHat, NHS, Coindesk, RBS and AiX. The place had an exciting vibe in the morning despite technical difficulties with the first speaker, and it felt like this kind of attention was long overdue for the Blockchain community.
I say this because it is a common theme that people I meet or speak too that are making a big impression in this space knew about the technology since around 2013, and now it is one of those things that is being spoken about down at the local pub on a Saturday night. This is obviously due to the monetary attraction from cryptocurrencies, but it felt great to be around people taking the actual technology underlying the famous crypto’s seriously, because let’s face it, nobody knows that Bitcoin or any of the other cryptocurrencies will stand the test of time but it is looking very likely that Blockchain will.
I say this with much certainty, especially in times such as now because so many of the big institutions and companies out there have all decided to take a look at the technology and how they can adapt it into their businesses. IBM is currently leading the surge in popularity, but are closely followed by other tech companies such as Microsoft who have recently partnered with IOTA and Amazon who are embracing distributed ledgers through R3.
However, what was really interesting to me was the massive interest from the Banks. 60% of the people attending the conference were bankers, 15% were investors and 25% were Entrepreneurs in the space. This is not surprising to me, however, because I truly feel that the industry that will be most affected by Blockchain technology will be the Banking industry. It is so outdated, so inefficient, and so untransparent it has actually become the norm now. But as a society, we should never settle for anything less than incredible, or at least the attempt to create the incredible. Banks and bankers see blockchain as a direct threat to their businesses and the way the fundamentals of banking works.
It is an incredible time in history that we are currently living in. I really feel like we live in one of the most innovative era’s in human history and it is so exciting for a 20-year-old who is just starting out in the world. Conversely, it is worrisome to me that although we have all this amazing technology in Blockchain, it is currently being massively underappreciated. Human beings still have not got out of the blind habit of following the crowd and getting into things they truly do not understand. It is evident that human psychology has not changed over the centuries that we have been present on planet earth. It is easily manipulated, especially in an era of connectivity that we currently live in nowadays. This is perfectly applicable to the current state of Bitcoin popularity vs. Blockchain popularity.
I have no idea about what’s going to be the future of Bitcoin or many of the other Cryptocurrencies, but it is scary to me how fast the price has skyrocketed over the past few weeks. It hit a high of $17,000 today for the first time (07/12/17), and although many would argue it has been long overdue, I honestly believe that this price can only be justified by the emotions that are currently being thrown around. That’s all it is, driven by pure emotion, people have little to no idea of what it is, yet they are still interested.
People see money, and they flock like sheep, I say this because I am now hearing multiple people speaking about Bitcoin at my university. The chat normally revolves around the topic of investing in Bitcoin, and it is awesome for me because it is something I have understood for a little longer than the majority, so I’m intrigued to hear what everyone has to say! But if I try to talk to them about Blockchain, on the whole, they have no idea what it is?
“Blockchain? What’s that? We’re on about Bitcoin?” - I laugh and cry simultaneously a little inside.
Regardless, at least this general space is finally getting some mass attention with the hype over Bitcoin. I would argue that in order for Blockchain to follow suit, the technology has to become more user-friendly to the average consumer within society. It is understandable, but it takes conscious effort to research and effort to grasp. Nowadays, human psyche just won’t allow the typical consumer make the time and effort to do this, so we need more of a solution (but I’m sure this will come in time.) The more people that are exposed to its capability, the more we will advance as humanity, and the more we will develop and grow in society.
I would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on anything I’ve said. I am really eager to continue to learn and receive criticism on any of my ideas and opinions soo feedback is more than welcome!
Cheers!
Adam x