Saddle up the horses and fire up the modem

What is bitcoin and how does it work — watch video
What is the blockchain — watch video
Why should we care about the blockchain — read blog post
How to convince somebody that bitcoin and blockchain technology is here to stay? — keep reading.

“I’m wondering how revolutionary this really is, distributed databases already exist.”
“This can’t be money; too slow.”
“Decentralized, puh, someday some power is going to take over Bitcoin.”

As blockchain training entrepreneurs we are always on the outlook for new ways to make people convince themselves of the power of new innovations. In bitcoin and spin-off public blockchain technologies that self-help is an extra challenge: Trust is involved, money at stake and loads of complex and nerdy stuff to begin with. Let’s help with a constant referral to history.

In my perspective the revolutionary aspect of public blockchain based innovation is not its current appearance. It is more like the first cars emerging, ploughing their way through the mud tracks the horses left for them. Faced with over-regulation because those cars attacked the established powers. Or the internet emerging struggling to bleep its way through modems and analog telephone lines.

I have used this metaphor or analogy many times before to explain to people what has happened with the rise of Bitcoin. And I will probably use it for the rest of my life.

Bitcoin may fall sooner or later, but its legacy is here to stay.

So saddle up the horses and fire up the modem every time we need it. Because it is not what you say, write, show, shout, throw to/at people, it is only what they start to believe is what convinces them finally.

If anyone is wondering how revolutionary Bitcoin can be, image yourself a century ago and jump of your horse to watch carefully how the T-Ford car goes by. Do you see its potential? Do you feel it in your stomach?
Or listen to the cheerful sound of the modems in the 90’s of the past century, you might hear it sing to the telephone companies.

“Laugh at me, despise me, hate me, but in 20 years time you will be no more than an app inside me”

It has happened many times before: The laughter, the denial, the anger, the resistance but in the end… the innovation prevails.

The innovative power of a blockchain is not that extensive.

It is just an independent verification machine of immutable proofs that can’t be censored.

But this is exactly what mankind needed. And it will pop up as a non-stoppable global machinery everywhere in our societies all over the world in all kinds of appearances under the hood of innovations. Reinforcing other innovations like IoT, Biometry and e-Identity management. How that process will evolve and what it will look like we don’t know yet. Two years ahead is a long time.

If you are interested to know how we at Blockchain Workspace saddle some horses now and again, have a look here at our recent set of short videos:
https://twitter.com/bcworkspace/status/841993236050771968
https://twitter.com/henkvancann/status/829702190713491457
https://twitter.com/henkvancann/status/827511684373815296
https://twitter.com/henkvancann/status/824982789258895360
https://twitter.com/henkvancann/status/823525828558524416
https://twitter.com/henkvancann/status/815907838778281984
https://twitter.com/henkvancann/status/814380557899624448
https://twitter.com/henkvancann/status/806841048131661824

Another topical example of censorship

This article is an elaboration of the my reply to the comment above on the article https://hbr.org/2017/03/blockchain-could-help-artists-profit-more-from-their-creative-works#comment-section of Don and Alex Tapscott. My comment was censored and removed by Harvard Business Review.

Decide for yourself whether I violated their posting guidelines, by writing the essence of the article above in a few sentences.

POSTING GUIDELINES

We hope the conversations that take place on HBR.org will be energetic, constructive, and thought-provoking. .. And to ensure the quality of the discussion, our moderating team will review all comments and may edit them for clarity, length, and relevance. Comments that are overly promotional, mean-spirited, or off-topic may be deleted per the moderators’ judgment. All postings become the property of Harvard Business Publishing.

Now you see why we might want to have uncensored speech that remains your property and not someone else’s :-)

Acknowledgements

Saddle up vintage photo: http://www.artofmanliness.com
Here to stay https://chillingcompetition.com
Censorship-photo: https://www.123rf.com/profile_rnl via 123RF Stock Photo