Blockchain technology will change our world.

I was going to write about something very lighthearted this week, like silly packaging, but I’ve been heavily distracted by blockchain coverage in recent times. Then, last week, mention of the new cryptocurrency, KodakCoin, really piqued my interest, so I thought I'd share a few observations.

I had only passing knowledge of the topic, but digging into it, I realised that blockchain, as the supporting technology that drives bitcoin and other digital currencies, could be the biggest thing since the Internet. Apologies to those who have reached and gone beyond this conclusion!

While my article is not about digital currencies, the way they work and are enabled by the computing muscle and encryption of blockchain technology is the first thing that struck me. It immediately hints at broader application potential so marketers should take notice.

Okay, a quick word about bitcoin, although you should note that there are more than 700 cryptocurrencies out there!

I'm not a Gen Z digital native like my teenagers, but I can assure you they cannot explain a bitcoin other than - at $15k a pop or whatever the wild price is currently - it sounds like a pretty cool way to get-rich-quick. Their father would add that it's also one way to lose our house and their most loved of possessions, the Xbox. Since Warren Buffet believes cryptocurrencies will tank, I feel pretty confident saying this. Time will tell.

But seriously, what initially puzzled me about bitcoin was the notion of banks of computers 'mining' a digital currency. No mint printing money. Just an awful amount of computing power crunching away at some clever algorithms.

I've since learnt that the word 'mining' is a misnomer. Relief!

What is actually happening is each computer in the blockchain network is incentivized for being there via the chance to earn value tokens - in this case, bitcoins. Computers compete against each in solving algorithms and earn bitcoins. Shades of Second Life? So I guess, the more a computer solves and the quicker it does it, the more tokens it earns.

As we struggle to make sense of an ever-increasing data overload, being able to deploy competitive computing muscle that delivers better information more efficiently, strikes me as a massive opportunity.

But that is not all. It gets better. Way better.

Let's look a little closer at blockchain technology. The concept is mindblowingly simple.

It's a database, but no ordinary database. Firstly, it's not centralised. It exists as a network of millions of separate computers around the world. So there is no single location that can be corrupted. Secondly, information is stored in blocks with serious encryption (get it? block-chain). The clever bit here is every information block is replicated across each of the decentralised computers in the network . The records are public and easily verifiable. Think global Google docs. Lastly, the network also automatically reconciles itself every ten-minutes.

In addition to data overload, comes the need for greater data integrity. With millions of computers working in-sync the data is safe and virtually incorruptible because in order to alter any info, the entire network would need to be overridden. Yet another massive application opportunity.

This technology has the potential to have the greatest impact on the future of the world. It is public, encrypted, and readily available for anyone to use. The underlying framework has the potential to go far beyond the current application in digital currencies enabling us to record, in complete safety, virtually anything of value known to us. Marketers, you need to take note.

#blockchain #disruption