Thought Leaders
Dying Star: Can Crypto Still Change the World?
Every major technology is changing the world and will continue to do so over the next few years. In the short-term, blockchain/cryptocurrency will revolutionize our industries in a way that has never happened before. We are already seeing this happen, with tech giants jumping on board such as Starbucks and Microsoft. These opportunities will be generated by blockchain's decentralized nature and its ability to allow people to transact across borders in a financial way – no matter where they live or what their nationality is. This can have huge impacts on society as well as different business sectors, including manufacturing, supply chains and logistics, healthcare, education, and finance.

Image Source: Modex Tech
Banking's legacy is a complex one but it can be summarized in two words: centralization and trust. Banks have been the dominant institutions for centuries, but this role is now being challenged by the rise of digital currencies. Centralised money has always been a problem in societies because it gives power to a certain few who are not accountable to anyone and may abuse that power without taking any responsibility for their actions. This is evident in the world we live in today when we look at corruption and fraud cases.
Decentralized ledgers have the potential to end this and that's what makes it so revolutionary. Blockchain is a ledger system which keeps records in a distributed database and is secured by cryptography. It's not controlled by any single party nor does it allow anyone to alter it. It's essentially a record of who owns whom and where things are as well as an agreed mechanism for fair-dealing between parties on the ledger. Decentralized ledgers function in the same way, but they use the internet to keep track of transactions rather than writing them down in paper-based ledgers. This can make transactions much faster and more efficient which will help with some of our most pressing issues nowadays.
Many in the world today are still unaware of the impact blockchain and crypto will have on their lives. It's understandable, because nobody can explain it, but it can be explained simply enough by just understanding the idea of how blockchain works. Blockchain is a new technology that hasn't been implemented anywhere on such a large scale before. Once there were only kings and queens, presidents and bankers sitting on top of this kind of power, but now even they are being removed from their seats and replaced by technology.
If we think back to the last 2,000 years of history, we can see that among the most prominent figures in history have been those who have wielded power in the form of gold coins (or paper money). But now, crypto is slowly but surely replacing this money, as well as destroying other sectors, such as the trust industry.
The time has come for the blockchain boom and it will affect everything we do in our everyday lives, like smartphones did over a decade ago. This technology is still in its infancy so there are many issues to be solved before it becomes widely accepted and used. However, all this hype and excitement surrounding it has helped to bring millions of dollars into the industry every day and billions in total have already been invested which means that this technology will be around for years to come.
Blockchain-based technologies make it easier for financial institutions to offer services across borders at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems. Furthermore, payments made with cryptocurrencies are processed immediately compared to banks which take several days. This helps reduce the costs of remittances and can help improve financial inclusion in emerging markets.
Most of the time when we think about cryptocurrency, we think only about money, but it can do so much more than that. Blockchain has made it possible for us to create decentralized applications (dApps) which work on an entirely different business model. The most famous example of such a dApp is called Uber and it allows people to request rides from anyone they want at any time they want while taking a cut of the fee as a commission. This has completely revolutionized the taxi industry and has become a household name all over the world.
However, blockchain-based dApps are not just limited to apps. They have many other uses which will help to improve the way we live our lives on a daily basis. One of these is called Patientory whose purpose is to store patient information from hospitals, pharmacies, and resources across the globe in one place. This problem of keeping up with patient information has existed for decades now and still hasn't been solved, but with this dApp being built on blockchain technology, it can be done much more efficiently than before with similar costs as current systems, and this is how crypto and its technology has changed the world and is carving out a new future.