The blockchain economy

Evey Thursday I shall post a blog post here. It's important that we all learn to blog on one or more platform. I also blog on Facebook, WordPress, LinkedIn, Steemit, and Medium. For that reason, I have dedicated different days for each platform. 

For the past few I have been looking into bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and the blockchain technology. That's many words to think about. You're probably aware of the term bitcoin. It has had its fair share of news headlines to the delight of those who beleive it’s a fad. They believe bitcoin will burst. It’s just a bubble. 

Bitcoin is a digital currency with a decentralised distribution protocol. So what does that mean? It means there’s no central bank which generates bitcoin. Bitcoin are generated by an incentive method which involves bitcoin mining. So what is bitcoin mining? It involves solving mathematical problems which are generated by every transaction involving bitcoin. So if I pay for a cup of coffee using bitcoin, that generates a maths problem on the bitcoin network. Bitcoin miners then compete to solve that problem. The first miner to solve it gets rewarded with bitcoin.

 But do the miners sit down with pen and paper to solve these problems? I thought they did, but no. Their specialised computers do the mining. They use a lot of electricity to do this. So the value of the bitcoin must be valuable enough to motivate these guys. Solving maths problems on the bitcoin network is basically done by the computers of bitcoin miners. I will show an example of a small bitcoin mine. 

By solving these problems, bitcoin miners are helping to make the blockchain more robust with encryption. In the coming weeks I shall say more as I learn more. 

Even if you’re not participating in the mining of bitcoin, it is important to understand the basics of blockchain technology. It is a decentralised network of authentication. It is called the trust protocol or the internet of sharing value. 

Blockchain technology has applications across the economic spectrum. There are applications in education, healthcare, banking. It’s everywhere. A new economy based on rewarding participation on the blockchain is emerging with new ways of creating capital. Fiat currencies are on notice!