Have you ever used an electrical outlet? Surely you have, since you’re reading this on an electronic device.
If you’ve done any travel to another country, you probably know what a universal adapter is. If not, it’s a device that you plug into an electrical outlet to adapt your plug to the local type of AC voltage electrical connection.
The picture above is just a glimpse of all the different electrical sockets that are available around the world. Considering the variance, it should be fairly obvious why we use universal adapters.
Just imagine that you’ve left your cozy home in the land of Type B sockets in Simple City for a vacation in Pleasantville. You’ve brought your favorite hair dryer, one of your vacation necessities to look your best. Since Pleasantville uses Type L sockets, you’re stuck with wet hair, unless you buy another hair dryer. With enough of this type of travel, in a few years you’d have a collection of hair dryers to show off to your friends!
A universal adapter is such a mundane, fundamental, and simple device that no one really ever questions its purpose. And yet, for those who travel internationally, it is a necessity. Just try to imagine how much of a nightmare traveling would be if universal adapters did not exist.
So why am I telling you all this?
In the early 20th century, when electricity was first being introduced into households, it became clear to everyone that electricity was beneficial to everyday life. Scientists, engineers, and governments all agreed that it would be advantageous to have electricity available in every single house so that everyone could make use of this valuable resource.
In that time, people were fascinated by all the different ways they could harness electricity, yet not really giving a thought to standards and scaling issues. There was no right or wrong way to deliver electricity to an appliance or a lamp. As long as it didn’t catch fire (which it often did), it was great!
As time went on, more people were using electricity. Engineers found many practical applications to harness it, and more people enjoyed the luxury of various electrical devices in their homes. Each government developed their own standards and protocols for design of electrical sockets and plugs, in order to make it easier for people to use all these new devices. Different standards were implemented that fit different needs, such as higher safety ratings for households, or higher current capacity for industrial use.
However, things got a little out of hand when people realized they wanted to use their favorite electrical devices in different environments. It would have been nearly impossible to coordinate an effort to make every socket on earth fit a single standard. It was much simpler to just enable the users to plug their devices into any socket of their choice. Hence, the idea of electrical adapters (and later universal adapters) was born.
Let’s go back to early 20th century.
If I told you that universal adapters would become a necessary part of our lives in the future, would you have believed me? If there were a group of really smart people trying to create a magical device known as a universal adapter, would you invest in their company?
Probably not.
But that’s only because the technology was so new at the time that no one would ever think about the need for universal adapters. “I live in 20th century England”, you’d say. “Why would I ever want to use my favorite desk lamp in Kazakhstan?!”
Today, more than 100 years later, we’re seeing the dawn of a new disruptive technology that could change the world as we know it in the coming years. If you haven’t heard of the word “blockchain”, you probably don’t hang around internet often enough like the other cool kids.
There are currently so many implementations of blockchain and distributed ledger technology that I couldn’t even begin to try and list them all, and as evidence of that, CoinMarketCap lists over 1500 crypto currencies at the time of this writing. Every single day we see new projects and new platforms introduced, providing a new unique approach to solving new, emerging problems.
There is a tremendous focus across many industries on how to use blockchain and how to apply it to specific needs, yet no one is really thinking about standards, or the criteria for mass adoption.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? To me, the state of blockchain right now is almost identical to the state of electricity in early 20th century.
Thankfully, there are people who are thinking about an absolutely critical requirement for mass adoption: a universal adapter for blockchain.
The Quant Network’s team are literally creating the universal adapter for blockchain. Using a technology called the Overledger, they’re building a platform that acts as a unified interface to many different blockchain ecosystems, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and many more. This Overledger is then used to run Multi-Chain Applications (MAPPs), which are basically like dApps, except they can interface with any blockchain supported by Quant.
Using this technology, anyone can create a MAPP that is automatically compatible with any current or future blockchain platform that is supported by Overledger, completely eliminating the need and cost required for porting applications across different blockchains.
If this doesn’t excite you, you’re probably the guy from earlier. “I live in 21st century America”, you say. “Why would I ever want to switch my application from using Ethereum smart contracts to using EOS smart contracts?”
What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that the need for a blockchain universal adapter is critical for this technology to gain mass adoption. If you need proof, just look at history. From screwdrivers and electrical sockets to the internet, software applications, and storage devices, we’ve had to make adapters for all of them to be usable and practical.
How is blockchain going to be any different?
If you haven’t looked at Quant already, go visit their website. All the cool, technical details are there.
Check it out and see for yourself how this team is contributing to mass adoption of this exciting technology we’re all starting to love, and judge for yourself.
