{"id":15681,"date":"2018-03-21T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=15681"},"modified":"2018-03-19T12:43:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T19:43:15","slug":"calculated-thought-how-cryptocurrency-could-change-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/03\/21\/calculated-thought-how-cryptocurrency-could-change-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Calculated Thought<\/em>: How cryptocurrency could change the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the idea of trustless transactions and a more decentralized internet had early adopters excited about blockchain technology, it was the price romp that garnered public attention and drew comparisons to the dot-com bubble.<\/p>\n

This may be why we see a holding pattern in price movement. Outside of the speculators who saw a quick path to profits, early adopters, developers, and those interested in the technology are waiting to see what it can do as it matures.<\/p>\n

Therein lies a question: does the average person need to understand blockchain technology for it to change the world?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Calculated Thought<\/em> is a column dealing with student finances that is featured in every issue of Nexus<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin was interviewed recently at SXSW; when asked about a tipping point for blockchain to be understood en masse<\/i> he replied, \u201cProbably the depths of blockchain won\u2019t be understood by the masses ever, in the same sense that TCP\/IP and HTTP aren\u2019t understood by the masses.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, those magical internet protocols still used today to help run the web weren\u2019t understood by most people, and even fewer could comprehend the potential of a connected world. The average user of the web explored little more than email and chat rooms in its infancy. In a mid-\u201990s interview with Bill Gates, David Letterman balked at the idea of listening to a baseball game over the internet, and jabbed, \u201cDoes radio ring a bell?\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but draw parallels to the criticisms of Bitcoin. Yes, we already have digital cash. You can use payment systems with the help of banks and payment-settling companies to transact all over the world.<\/p>\n

Yet, as the internet spawned the world wide web and offered the decentralization and distribution of information\u2014known as the \u201cinternet of information\u201d\u2014blockchain may offer that same effect through the \u201cinternet of value.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Tapscott, co-author of the book Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World<\/i>, said in a 2016 interview with I-CIO that that the internet of information had a weakness: \u201cYou couldn\u2019t store, move, transact value without a powerful intermediary. And that\u2019s what blockchains solve.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve previously written on the idea that our personal information is a commodity and that we should question whether access to applications like Facebook and Google is worth the trade for that information. Blockchain may have an answer.<\/p>\n

In that SXSW interview, Lubin says that \u201con the web right now, I would argue that identity is broken\u2026 it gets stored on corporate servers\u2026 and monetized by corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lubin\u2019s company, ConsenSys, is working on an identity construct built on the Ethereum blockchain that hopes to allow users to, according to Lubin during the SXSW interview, \u201ccontrol encrypted aspects of their identity, selectively and granularly disclose those aspects of their identity in situations they designate, and if they want to monetize those, they can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is much work to be done before we see a shift to decentralized applications in our everyday online activity. But, just as the web drew confusion, excitement, speculation, a spectacular crash, and a life-altering leap in technology, blockchain technology just might change the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the idea of trustless transactions and a more decentralized internet had early adopters excited about blockchain technology, it was the price romp that garnered public attention and drew comparisons to the dot-com bubble. This may be why we see a holding pattern in price movement. Outside of the speculators who saw a quick path […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-march-21-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15682,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681\/revisions\/15682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}