Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies: What are the limits to use cases?

I recently attended a conference on blockchain use cases in Industrial Property (IP) Administration. IP administration is stuff to do with registration and maintenance of ownership rights in, say trademarks (branding), industrial designs, and patents. Anyway, to cut a long story short, one of the main conclusions made was that blockchain technology does not really fit IP administration use cases due to its public nature, and that blockchain mainly addresses trust and security issues. I was taken aback and felt compelled to highlight other benefits of this technology that do not get a mention in the news media. It also made me appreciate the importance of extensive research, and deep understanding of any subject matter one would like to make pronouncements on or throw resources at. In this article, I only touch on the other benefits of blockchain and in my next one, I will talk about permissioned vs public blockchains.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the major benefits of blockchain technology, and to some extent cryptocurrencies as a means of transfer of value. Blockchain is built on well-established technologies like distributed systems, virtualisation, database systems, and of course networking to name just a few. That's in addition to cryptography and immutability through duplication and block mining, including microprocessor technologies. In other words, blockchain is the amalgamation of technologies both old and new to create a fair system that gives power and ownership to every participant, and enables transfer of value in the most secure and transparent way.

My point is that, if you want to talk about use cases and benefits of blockchain technology, you ought to go all the way back to smoke signals, virtualisation and containerisation on mainframe servers, microprocessors, database systems (both relational and key/value pairs), networking, distributed systems, and modern programming languages. Think in terms of a system that puts all that together as one technology and platform.

Let me give one example of an undercurrent benefit that does not get highlighted often and would also apply to many use cases, including IP administration. With distributed systems and virtualisation, we cut down on costs of software packaging, distribution, and the need for Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIs or system interfaces are easy to talk about but difficult and expensive to implement in reality. They look good on a powerpoint presentation but in reality those are costly and major undertakings. And not to mention costs of maintaining those APIs whenever there are structural changes to the interfaced systems. There are very few talented developers out there who can develop/program resilient and stable APIs. Blockchain technology jumps through those huddles like a seasoned athlete and focus on transfer of value and immutability. The benefits I am highlighting here are taken as given and are implicitly built in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Next time you happen to attend a blockchain or cryptocurrencies conference on use cases, think in terms of aggregation of these technologies that go all the way back to mainframe servers, terminals (of course now we have Javascript and all these modern languages that make our modern terminals smarter and better looking), virtualisation, databases, networking, distributed systems, developments in microprocessing, and basically any major information technology development of our recent past. Don't let the popular media influence your view/understanding of this paradigm-shifting technology. Do your own research, read published articles, lots of them, and make your own enlightened conclusions.