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Bitcoin may be the currency of choice, but it’s blockchain, the technology that supports it, that has everyone talking.
“Every blockchain transaction is open on this big public ledger. So it’s kind of like if you share an Excel file with a group of your employees at the office. Every time that you update the file, it gets updated on every other computer.”
Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to enable anonymous, peer-to-peer payments, which is why the digital currency is often associated with illicit activity. But developers are realizing the same technology can be applied elsewhere.
“Now there’re stuff like Ethereum, which allows developers to do more than just transact money and actually create their own sort of distributed systems and applications.”
Blockchains eliminate the need for intermediary parties, by relying on a decentralized network of computers, or nodes, to verify transactions.
Hudson Jameson helped develop a hardware and software platform for cars based on the Ethereum blockchain. “We put an Ethereum node on a Tesla, and so whenever it would go through a toll bridge, the Ethereum node or the car you can think of would interact with the toll bridge and autonomously pay the toll bridge. So if you think about what a toll bridge does today, you have to pay a credit card transaction fee. But with our system, it’s literally machine-to-machine.”
This machine-to-machine communication allows direct access to the digital currency stored in one’s digital wallet. Transactions are processed on the spot without going outside of the network.Companies like Toyota, UnitedHealth Group and Fidelity are exploring blockchain and in part lending it legitimacy.
“We’ve really seen the space explode and enter into a bunch of different directions, growing in diversity. There’s more people involved than ever.”
Only time will tell whether blockchain can set off a chain reaction.
Tina Trinh, VOA News, New York.
