What makes blockchain devotees so passionate
about the technology? Is it a means to get rich or something much bigger? And
how do you even explain the thing to people who don’t quite get it? We sent
reporters to blockchain conferences in Dallas, Texas, and Cambridge, UK, to
find out.
“We should stop trying to explain blockchain and start trying to show
what the benefits are, because consumers don’t really need to know how it
works. They don’t know how Visa or the Treasury—how any of those things work,
but they know that they add value to their lives.” —Aari Lotfipour, 33, Dallas
“The internet was really started
because of the same ideas. We wanted the freedom to share information, freedom
of voice, level the playing field, allow small ideas to become big. This is all
the same thing that’s going on. It’s just another layer on top.” —Chris Nichols, 47, Dallas
“Years ago when Bitcoin was three cents I got too busy to buy it, and
they kept saying buy it, and I kept saying I’ll get to it, and then I forgot.
And then the other week I saw it was at $19,000. I thought, if I had it, I’d
sell it now. But I didn’t have it. I really kicked myself in the butt. Those
are millions of dollars that I could have had.” —Michael Mullen, 50s, Dallas
What do you tell your friends about
cryptocurrencies?
“They were like, ‘You’re putting all that
money in? You’re crazy!’ and now they are all calling me for advice.”
Has it made you rich?
“Oh, yes. In my country, Croatia, yes. I
bought a house.” - Petar Juršic, 23, UK
“The internet unlocked applications we didn’t think were possible—like Twitter, which came completely
out of the blue. The same way the internet revolutionized communication,
blockchain is going to revolutionize trust. Now there is an alternative to
institutions and governments. We can rethink the whole system.” —Justin Drake, 29, UK
“Through the blockchain, everyone’s going to have a global ID, so you’ll
have your own genome that’ll be anonymize-encrypted, and then through
crypto-keys you’ll be able to totally manage who has access to your genome. So
you can donate it, you can monetize it, but this is all going to be something
that you control.” —Henry Ines,
43, Dallas
What do you think this ends up doing 10, 20
years down the line?
“I think that if I had an answer for that, it would be the most bullshit
answer that I’ve ever given to anything in my life.”
Okay.
“If you asked me in 1997 what the internet was for, I would tell you
that I could use it for e-mail and to download some pictures of boobs, and now
it’s on my phone and I can do so many ridiculous things with it at the touch of
a button or a swipe at any point in time. I don’t think we know what those
future iterations look like. I would love for people to have more financial
sovereignty and more control. I would love for it to lead to a freer, more
borderless, more censorship-resistant world.”—Amber D. Scott, 39, Dallas
“In India there is a lot of black-market trading going on, and it seems
that with blockchain—with its
ledger that can never be changed—it’s
a secure location. And as someone who’s seen black-market deals happening in
front of my eyes, the idea that that might become a lot harder to do, and might
one day be eradicated—it’s just
really fascinating.” —Ashkay
Shah, 21, UK
“Six months ago on my LinkedIn feed there was not a lot of blockchain or
crypto chatter. Three months ago I started getting more. Now, like 75 percent
of my news feed is all about crypto and blockchain and who’s doing what.” —John Nolz, 44, Dallas
“A few years ago I got involved in a hackathon and they were looking at
finding a way to give an identity to 230 million children unaccounted for by
the authorities in Africa and India. The idea that our team came up with was
that you can take a picture of the child, and take their fingerprint every year
and store it on the blockchain, and then you give the child their digital
identity when they turn 18.” —Christiana
Imafidon, 24, UK
Would you buy any cryptocurrency?
“No, because I don’t back horses, and you know if a horse doesn’t win,
you don’t get anything. Same with a cryptocurrency—if it fails, you’ve got
nothing!” —John Goldworth, 89, UK
“We’re going to start seeing the beginnings of a borderlessness in
politics and the marketplace. That’s what really stood out to me ... to not be
at the behest of the people who are in control anymore.” —Elizabeth Munker, 28, UK
How would you explain blockchain to your
grandma?
“I would say, Grandma, you know how you have your credit card now? Just
think of it as you have the credit card, but it’s all on your phone now,
Grandma.” —Trek, 38, Dallas
Click here for the original
article from MIT Technology Review.