What’s the deal with all the cryptocurrency hype? A very good questions indeed.

I had originally heard of the blockchain technology a few years before creating this website around 2011 when I was researching on crowd intelligence and self organizing organic life. The ability for decentralized systems to have an emergent quality, in most cases unintended, which provided better solutions to a planned and intentionally designed system.

The blockchain and consensus algorithms was a very interesting approach to trust, where the trust is not weighted on one person or entity but spread out across the many, very much in line with the ethos of this website. Beyond that, I had skipped through the currency portion called Bitcoin which to me was secondary to the idea. (Obvious mistake in hindsight)

There are many types of blockchain technologies using technologies such as proof of work, proof of stake, and others on the horizon with technologies evolving as time goes on. The beauty is the technology itself is open source and uses swarms of technogeeks to smartly and efficiently produce secured networks for transactions. The era of open-source platforms is about to explode, having showed its superior creation in the unhackable blockchain technologies of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Iota, and many other crypto currencies.

Why is this important one might ask?

1- Well for starters it is creating the foundation where services on the internet will not be centralised. Facebook may connect all of us, but they keep all the information and profit from it, the same goes for Google, Amazon, Twitter, Apple etc. etc. … all the big techs. Decentralised and distributed services provide the concept and possibility that all will be involved and benefit from the services. The implications of this cannot be underestimated.

2- Have you ever read the Terms and Conditions of any technology or online service provided? If you haven’t you might have not noticed that they ask you to agree to absolve them of all liabilities and indemnify them against any damages you may incur using their service. Simply put, Microsoft can release its operating system with huge gapes of security vulnerabilities, for which later they provide a patch for. They state quite clearly that they are not responsible for this. The priority for them is profit and being out first in the market, secondary is your security and privacy.

When you are dealing with the digital consensus algorithm you are dealing with a resilient code written and checked by thousands of coders secured enough to safeguard billions of dollars. This is the foundation which will secure people in the future. The first layer, where other services and technologies can be built on. Think of it as the internet when you could only write text. The browser has not yet been developed and no one is even thinking about social networks.

So when you start wondering why the cyptocurrency world has gone crazy. Think the same amount of Bitcoin that could have bought you a couple of pizza’s less than a decade ago, is now worth close to half a billion US Dollars. How Bitcoin and less than half a dozen other digital currencies with an insignificant market worth can spawn a vibrant crypto market with over 2,500 digital currencies of a market capitalization of nearly a trillion dollars.

This is a response by the masses to the few, showing for the first time in recent history that the days of the few in control are numbered. There was a time when this was necessary, since a hierarchical system was the natural order of things. Now we have a technology that will enable a hundred thousand board members to make a quick and educated decision without chaos, thanks to the blockchain technology and the ideas and technologies it will inspire. No more need for banks, politicians, lawyers, accountants, just innovators, and the wisdom of the crowd.