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by James Watkins & Eva Rodriguez
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Six years after the creation of bitcoin, another public blockchain-based system came along that many think could prove to be even more powerful. Ether, the cryptocurrency behind the Ethereum system, is now the second-most popular digital currency after bitcoin, with a market cap of around $30 billion.
Ethereum’s key innovation? Self-enforcing “smart contracts,” which not only have financial gurus on Wall Street excited but also film producers, musicians and journalists. For creators currently strangled by the internet’s obsession with free content, releasing movies, songs or articles on an Ethereum-based system could generate automatic micropayments for every stream, listen or read — direct from the consumers to the content creators, middlemen be damned (sorry Netflix, Spotify and Facebook).
As you may know (especially if you are among the 145 million Americans whose personal information was compromised in the hack of the consumer credit reporting agency Equifax), loads of companies hold your data in their systems. But what if a blockchain-based network stored everyone’s sensitive information in a distributed system?
Rather than a million Social Security numbers in a single vault, it’d be a million vaults, each with one number. Instead of typing in your personal data every time you sign up for a new account, you’d grant someone permission to view your vault — and always be able to tell exactly who had accessed your data and when. A blockchain-based social media company could even include a self-enforcing contract that paid you every time an advertiser showed you a targeted ad based on your personal info.
OK, it may not sound as sexy as other applications, but blockchain comes into its own in supply-chain industries. Take the diamond industry, for example. Currently, companies that mine, distribute, cut and polish stones, along with jewelers and other retailers, all operate with their own record-keeping systems, making it easy for blood diamonds or fakes to enter the supply chain. That’s why the idea of an industrywide blockchain to track diamonds has taken off.
Similar shared, distributed ledgers could eventually be used to verify the provenance of fair-trade coffee or to improve efficiency in the bureaucratic nightmare that comes with assembling complex products such as cars.
No, it can’t. Blockchain has its limitations, and while the underlying tech seems pretty secure, the systems that feed information into it have to be just as robust, because the ledger behind it all is immutable and permanent. It’s almost too perfect — if a mistake slips onto the blockchain, it’s there for good. Plus, nobody knows whether blockchains are perfectly secure. As we excitedly add money, identity documents and other incredibly valuable information to these systems, any potential vulnerability could be exploited with calamitous effects.
At the heart of the sophisticated cryptography that makes it all work is crowd-based verification. By design, no one entity can have more than half of the computing power on the network, so no one can tamper with blocks or add fake ones to the chain. That’s all fine and dandy — but computer code isn’t set in stone. The development of quantum computers several orders of magnitude more powerful than today’s supercomputers eventually may threaten the integrity of existing cryptographic systems, and nobody knows what would happen then....
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Blockchain Style
Blockchain is poised to be the most disruptive technology since the internet. So why is conservative Wall Street leading the charge for change?
Self-Disruption or Self-Destruction — Can Wall Street Tame the Blockchain?
Blockchain is coming. Like the internet before it, this new shared digital infrastructure is set to transform the economy and revolutionize how you consume media, how you communicate online and even how you vote.
So strap in with OZY, and let us catch you up on what it all means and then vault you ahead to the next big cryptotrends.
As cryptocurrencies and blockchain grow, so, too,
does cryptocrime.
The Future of Crime in the
Blockchain Economy
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How Cryptocurrencies Became the World's Most Expensive Joke
Distributed computing networks could replace internet giants’ data centers, and you could get in on the action — by renting out your hard drive.
How to Earn Free Money Online — Thanks to Blockchain
Governments are using crypto tech to digitize services from tax filing to paying benefits. Coming soon: blockchain-based online voting.
How Blockchain Could Change the Way You Vote and Pay Taxes