An amazing summary of what is going on.
Early adopters are the ones marginalized as outcasts. Yet, they are also the ones who profit. We are seeing a major technological revolution underway and blockchain is at the core of it.
I love how you described decentralized blockchain....that is the key. Too much is being made of what private corporations are doing with "blockchain"...that is not blockchain. They control it, they own it, and they can alter it. Plus it still requires trust in IBM, WalMart, or JPMorgan.
An amazing comment!
I have to hope and pray that some people read the entire thing of what I write, so they get the full effect of it.
You obviously did, and I thank you very much for doing it.
You must have noticed (and I think you did) how I said PUBLIC blockchains ... really enforcing the word "PUBLIC"
A blockchain is useless unless it is a public ledger, open for public scrutiny to ensure it is legitimate.
Trustless, public blockchains is the way you go.
...and no, I do not trust IBM, WalMart, or JPMorgan. Not as individual entities, but because of scale.
Unless every one of those institutions trust their own employees to walk into any of their executive's offices and look through their filecabinets, then it means, they also, have things to hide.
When it comes to monetary transactions, they should not be hidden. This way we know exactly how much money has moved, when, and to which new blockchain address. That's enough. The actual sender and receiver of the money becomes less important at that stage.
(Besides, large accounts are often identified, even on a public Blockchain. The bitcoin address of funds stolen, or of a large cryptocurrency exchange like MtGox get disclosed or known. So the large volume movements are rarely hidden... especially when everyone is watching)
But in today's monetary system, we don't even have THAT much information. Our monetary system is VERY private. No one knows for sure how much money has moved, when and where. It's all replied upon by private institutions "willingly reporting". How many institutions fail to report? Or move funds and then erase the trail? We don't know...
Glad you enjoyed the article -- I am really happy you wrote.
A blockchain that is not decentralized and open is not a blockchain but a shared database.
Here is what it is open to:
-third party counter-risk
-hacking
-altering
-lack of innovation
-manipulation or outright theft
None of that applies to blockchains (public if we have to use that term). Many disagree with us on that premise but I do not see shared databases, even if encrypted, being revolutionary.