We can confidently claim that everyone has heard about Bitcoin these days. Many have already acquired some through a Bitcoin exchange, but the underlying technology, blockchain, is far less understood.

Without further education, the public will struggle to see how exactly this technology can be applied to help improve existing systems- or to create entirely new ones. While some evangelists seem to believe that “everything’s better with Blockchain”, we find this position to be a bit misguided, if not overtly reckless. In order to set things right, let’s first examine it from the perspective of cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin), and then go deeper to see how varied the usage of Blockchain can be…and eventually speculate on its future.

How did it all begin?

As you may have guessed, Blockchain was initially implemented in Bitcoin- the first true cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin Blockchain acted as an independent, decentralized network for peer-to-peer transactions, which ensured greater security and eliminated third-party oversight at all stages of the process. It’s now been nearly 10 years since the original Bitcoin whitepaper was released in 2009, so naturally there have been some significant updates since then.

New Blockchain features exploited

In the years following the advent of Bitcoin, new cryptocurrencies began to appear. While projects like Litecoin or Dogecoin are essentially just a fresh take on the same structure Bitcoin had pioneered, projects like Ethereum approached Blockchain technology from a fundamentally new angle. It allowed for real applications to run autonomously on a decentralized ledger. This gave birth to a concept called dApps (decentralized applications).

What is the difference between regular and decentralized applications?

The core differences of a decentralized application are:

Autonomy & independence . While developers drive the creation of public dApps, once they’re launched, any user can then modify the blockchain they’re built on. The exclusion of any intermediary force eliminates potential fraud, maximizes system performance, and considerably reduces the cost of using the application for end users. From the ideological point of view, decentralization removes everything but the devs and the dApp itself from the equation.

. While developers drive the creation of public dApps, once they’re launched, any user can then modify the blockchain they’re built on. The exclusion of any intermediary force eliminates potential fraud, maximizes system performance, and considerably reduces the cost of using the application for end users. From the ideological point of view, decentralization removes everything but the devs and the dApp itself from the equation. Security & Transparency. Unlike regular software apps, dApps run on a decentralized network, where nodes are responsible for validating certain activities on the blockchain. This distributed control means that a dApp can’t be tampered with without attracting the attention of everyone working on that blockchain. Activity logs are shared across all participating nodes and are cryptographically secured- ensuring ultimate safety and transparency.

Perhaps you still feel that the blockchain is only a backend/tech-side improvement over existing systems, which don’t really impact you as an end user. Well, let’s keep the ball rolling- and by the end of the article it’ll be much clearer how revolutionary this technology truly is.

Blockchain boom — what is it good for?

Clearly, we’re in the midst of a Blockchain boom right now. Today, there are already scores of successful blockchain-based applications with functional products that you can demo. This section is focused on the real-world use cases and further clarification around how they work.

An Ethereum-based (runs on the Ethereum blockchain) platform for financial applications. Their first product, Trusted Lending Circles, helps provide users with immediate access to far more capital than they could save themselves. It does this by allowing users to collectively pool funds into a lending circle. The idea is as simple as it is genius. Let’s say you’ve assembled a ‘circle’ of people whom you trust (like family or friends). After that, everyone in the circle agrees upon a particular amount of money to contribute and defines a period of contribution. For example, let’s assume that there are 10 people in a circle and everyone must deposit $100 each month for 10 months. At the end of the contribution period (which is one month in this example), one user can choose to take all of the money deposited in the circle, which is $1,000. The next month, another user will get their chance to draw. So, throughout the period of 10 months, every users eventually gets the access to the full pool of funds. The biggest perk? There’s no big banks involved taking their cut of fees for acting as the “trusted third party” since the circle is built by those who already know and trust each other.

SureRemit is a decentralized platform that allows users to send digital vouchers to any part of the world. Users can buy goods or services from local merchants with their app or use this technology to pay their bills. For example, if you have a son to support who lives in another country, this app will enable you to pay for his utility bills or textbooks (hopefully not his beer money!) without intermediaries. It’s all handled peer-to-peer, securely, fast, and cheap.

Stellar is almost a fee-free payment network for moving money across borders. Take the killer features of Ethereum and Ripple, implement them in a different project and you will get the Stellar platform. It is an open-source smart-contract based decentralized network that interacts with a number of financial institutions to ensure instant payments, both in cryptocurrency and fiat, and allows for issuing new tokens through ICOs. Another feature that helps Stellar stand out is its support for exchanging any asset within the platform itself. Users can place buy/sell orders, which are then added to the network orderbook and filled upon matching.

Will Blockchain become the future of everything?

Time will tell- but we’re leaning towards yes. Blockchain technology is able to digitize any kind of valuable information, from money to physical assets and even your identity or property documents.

Here’s another example of how it will serve you directly in the near future. You want to buy a car and have everything that’s required: sufficient funds and all of the necessary documents. What you don’t have, however, is time to deal with the legal bureaucratic procedures. With a Blockchain solution implemented, you will be able to buy a car with only one click, as all of the following processes can now be automated:

Document verification

Money transfer

License on the car registered to your identity

Although blockchain technology is still in the initial stages of development, it has already shown us just how necessary it is and how powerful it will become in the future.

Do you agree? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.