The blockchain only makes sense from a Sci-Fi perspective

With the exception of currencies suffering from hyper-inflation, the blockchain is proving to have little use. However lets transport ourselves into a Sci-Fi world.

The intergalactic consortium of planets has recently decided to review earth. Until recently, earth was only scoped once a Millennia. However due to the state of technological discoveries on earth, technology’s compounding factor, on the speed at which new discoveries are made, earth has been switched to an ‘imminent’ schedule, hence the per century probing.

Last time earth was scoped, 1909, the rate of technological discoveries was already increasing, but this civilisation was still in its infancy. Even more worryingly, the main applications of their scientific and technological discoveries were being used for mass weaponisation.

The inhabitants of earth were, in fact, waging the greatest World War that had yet been observed. Their use of explosives was already deadly, but with the recent invention of the radio, they were getting better organised at killing each other.

Civilisation type: Diest. Barbaric. Innovative. On the cusp of major technological breakthroughs.

year 2008

• prober: Sir, the humans are now technologically capable.
• officer: Good. Are they becoming more peaceful?
• prober: Yes sir. It seems they are mostly trading peacefully. War has subsided.
• officer: Are they interplanetary yet?
• prober: No sir. They seem to have landed on their moon, and sent probes to their nearest neighbouring planet. I believe they may be planning to send subjects soon.
• officer: Great. How do they track their resources?
• prober: They use centralised trusted parties sir.
• officer: Perfect. Look for a suitable subject, and incept him.

year 2018

• officer: Based on my notes, we need to review earth post decentralisation. Did the inception work?
• prober: Well, sir, yes and no.
• officer: Yes and no?
• prober: At first, the humans used it to buy illegal substances.
• officer: Illegal substances? But that’s profoundly stupid! We incept earth with a technology capable of overturning their current financial system, and start afresh, and they use it to buy illegal substances? Cretins! How are they circumventing the traceability?
• prober: Sir, they are branching the ledger and making it private, so that transactions are untraceable.
• officer: But that’s the exact opposite of its use.
• prober: Yes sir. They also seem to be using it as a speculative vehicle.
• officer: What?
• prober: Sir, they are trading the coins between each other. That’s it.
• officer: What a strange species. Do they have an inkling that anyone can build their own financial network? Keep trace of their transactions, prove they are ethical, and move away from their barbaric ways?
• prober: Some are starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together sir, but mostly no, not yet.
• officer: Did they figure out their entire lives on record? And that we have access to everything?
• prober: There’s little trace of it. Sir, shall we make contact? Shall we welcome them?
• officer: No. They seem so incredibly intelligent, and so incredibly stupid all at once.
• prober: Sir, when should I schedule the next probe?
• officier: 100 years. Actually, no. Make that a thousand. Just drop a hint that they were probed.