By Sandra Quinn
Like anything new, when the blockchain first came to the fore of the technology world, it was treated with almost equal measures of excitement and trepidation.
What if this changes the world?
How do we control it?
If the blockchain is the source of trust, who is in charge?
What if it gets hacked?
Will people understand it enough to encourage mass use of the technology?
Will its uses be vast and varied enough?
All of these questions and more were popping up in headlines every week and still are, and yet some people still view the blockchain as a threat, instead of as an opportunity.
Let’s paint a scenario;
You are a writer, you have come up with a great idea for a novel, you start writing and get really passionate about the project, but don’t know where to go next.
At an unexpected networking event, you run into a publisher and in good faith, you run your idea past them.
Months later, as you have been toiling away on your novel and trying to get it into the right hands, you see a very familiar story appearing in the best seller lists.
Your idea has been stolen, but how do you prove it? It’s your word against theirs.
Now, let’s put this scenario into the blockchain and see what happens;
You are a writer and you come up with a great idea for a novel, you start writing and get really passionate about the project, but don’t know where to go next.
You go online and search for publishing contacts to get in touch with, you’re in luck and using the Globex Call communications app from Horizon Globex, you get in touch with the contact and pitch your idea using the ‘secure conversation’ option.
Because you know the conversation is valuable and that your idea could be worth something, you notarize the conversation, which will take less than half an hour to complete. No more waiting for a legal professional to get back to you, having someone sit in on a meeting or needing a third party to validate the contents of a conversation. This is all done with a few clicks through the Globex Call app and www.notar.ie.
Months later, you are gleeful with a grin spreading across your face as you see your dream become a reality and your debut novel is right there in the best seller lists.
This is just one example of how the blockchain can change a story for the better, but there are so many advantages worth considering.
The blockchain can be used to eliminate rigging and tampering from political elections, as we discussed recently in this blog here.
It can ramp up security, protect your personal information and prevent hacking, as we discussed here.
The possibilities are not endless, but they are vast and people need to start embracing the blockchain technology as the opportunity that it really is, rather than seeing it as an ominous threat, lurking in the darkest, murkiest corners of the internet.