Most stories I've read about bitcoin tend to focus on the sensational, boom or bust aspect of cryptocurrencies. It's nice to see an article address that its the underlying tech that is really the important thing. Having a distributed system of trust that is based on mathematical principals is crazy powerful. I'm very eager to see what becomes of that tech in its 4th and 5th big iterations.
As a person who hasn't really used any cryptocurrency and has only done enough research into it to know how it basically works I am interested to know what is the next big iteration that is on the horizon? I am just curious as to how you would expand on this past what bitcoin and other cryptocurriencies already do.
I'm pretty sure (though it's just speculation), that Bitcoin itself would just evolve. It is an open-source, ongoing project after all. The main reason though is that a totally viable and healthy blockchain network already exists: the bitcoin network. Any major changes or "new features" would do better to just be incorporated into the main protocol vs building another network. The entire point of a blockchain network is distribution; if you want sole control of it, you'd just run it off a server rather than P2P in a network you can't mess with.
I was thinking more along the lines of adapting the tech to things you wouldn't immediately think of. Using the idea of distributed trust to create a lightweight escrow service for example. Bitcoin is the pioneer of the tech, but its uses go beyond a currency format.
Indeed they do. You can encode information in the blockchain already, and hopefully it would scale up with increased use. One of the uses that is more immediately feasible is maintaining a deed registry on the blockchain, which would be pretty easy. But that's part of the evolution.
We're seeing Bitcoin/blockchain tech in it's absolute infancy. It could die, sure, but if it doesn't it could grow into something we couldn't imagine.
Most stories I've read about bitcoin tend to focus on the sensational, boom or bust aspect of cryptocurrencies. It's nice to see an article address that its the underlying tech that is really the important thing. Having a distributed system of trust that is based on mathematical principals is crazy powerful. I'm very eager to see what becomes of that tech in its 4th and 5th big iterations.
As a person who hasn't really used any cryptocurrency and has only done enough research into it to know how it basically works I am interested to know what is the next big iteration that is on the horizon? I am just curious as to how you would expand on this past what bitcoin and other cryptocurriencies already do.
I'm pretty sure (though it's just speculation), that Bitcoin itself would just evolve. It is an open-source, ongoing project after all. The main reason though is that a totally viable and healthy blockchain network already exists: the bitcoin network. Any major changes or "new features" would do better to just be incorporated into the main protocol vs building another network. The entire point of a blockchain network is distribution; if you want sole control of it, you'd just run it off a server rather than P2P in a network you can't mess with.
I was thinking more along the lines of adapting the tech to things you wouldn't immediately think of. Using the idea of distributed trust to create a lightweight escrow service for example. Bitcoin is the pioneer of the tech, but its uses go beyond a currency format.
Indeed they do. You can encode information in the blockchain already, and hopefully it would scale up with increased use. One of the uses that is more immediately feasible is maintaining a deed registry on the blockchain, which would be pretty easy. But that's part of the evolution.
We're seeing Bitcoin/blockchain tech in it's absolute infancy. It could die, sure, but if it doesn't it could grow into something we couldn't imagine.
Please visit http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/ for all your future bitcoin related information needs.