Harnessing the power of Blockchain
To some, “Blockchain” is simply a word used to describe an overrated concept of sending money online. To others, Blockchain is the future of economy, of monetary transaction and the normal evolution of currency. Just how the internet was not fully understood or trusted by everyone at first, blockchain is currently in a similar phase, because apart from the people who actively work in the blockchain space, the regular user doesn’t fully understand all the intricacies of this new technology. But that never stopped the internet from becoming mainstream.
Blockchain will likely follow the same path of the internet, moving from “What is this? I don’t trust it. How does it work?” to “I wonder how I ever lived without it”. Let’s face it, some of us still don’t understand the protocols and everything that takes place behind the curtains of sending a simple e-mail, but we are still sending e-mails everyday because we’ve learned to trust the technology and we know for sure that our data will reach the designated person. Similarly, people don’t always understand how the ledger fully works but they can send cryptocurrencies overseas in just minutes as opposed to days (in case of bank services). However there’s a lot more to blockchain than sending money and just like the internet back in the day, now blockchain is touted as the technology of the future.
Pros and Cons
New and old technologies alike are boosted by advantages and plagued by cons. It’s a fact. Things are never all black or all white and blockchain is no exception but the “white” in this case vastly outweighs the “black”. Next, we’ll take a brief look at blockchain’s characteristics:
Pros — Value can be transferred in a safe and confidential manner, without third-party alteration or involvement.
A massive peer to peer network verifies all transactions. This means there’s no need for third-party verification because any individual can see network transaction activity. This also means that there’s no need for middlemen such as banks or lawyers.
Eliminating the middlemen also means that transaction costs will be lower (you won’t have to pay bank fees).
Crypto assets cannot be frozen by banks in the case of economic crisis. For example, during the Greek Crisis that boiled over during the July 2015 referendum, Greek banks were closed and ATM withdrawals were restricted to 60 Euros per day, per person. This can never happen with crypto assets because they are not governed by a central authority and not dependent on banks.
Blockchain operates mainly in a trustless manner, meaning that you don’t have to trust a company or person to deliver their part of the bargain. If a smart contract is in place, blockchain tech will ensure that all conditions are fulfilled.
Blockchains are largely considered “unhackable”, yet some exceptions can occur, which brings us to our next section:
Cons — The dreaded 51% attack! Assuming someone could take control of 51% of a network’s entire hashing power, that person or group of persons would be able to alter the ledger of transactions. However, this is a highly unlikely scenario.
Scams. This is not a problem of the blockchain as a technology but it’s rather something related to the people involved. Whenever money moves around, there will be people looking to take advantage in nefarious ways, profiting from the naivety of others. Since the crypto world has gained more exposure overall, the pool of users has increased and more scammers started to flock in, looking for easy prey. Scams range from auto-trading robots that will allegedly make you thousands of dollars per day in cryptocurrency, to people saying they will multiply whatever crypto assets you send them and even fake phishing sites or fake Twitter accounts that pose as large and real brokerages or companies.
Losing access to your crypto wallet! Again, this is not really a problem with blockchain tech but with the people who own and handle crypto assets. The unhackable nature of the blockchain can also become an issue because if your password (private key needed to restore a wallet) is gone, you lose all the contents of that wallet. And people often misplace things, even important ones. However, this last problem is fully solved by Infinitus (INF), which is the dApp that makes sure your private keys are always safe.
Blockchain and Infinitus — A Tightly Knit Duo
We could have built a simple app for storing your passwords, private keys, mnemonic phrases and recovery seeds but that would have meant that you would not take advantage of the blockchain and all its benefits. A regular app is by definition centralized, meaning that usually its creators control its functionality and also that you have to trust said creators to handle your data: they have to store it safely and send it to you when you request it. This is a system based on trust and thus flawed because you depend on the app owners/creators to do what they have promised.
On the other hand, a dApp is an application built by leveraging the power of the blockchain and making use of smart contracts, therefore eliminating the trust issue and creating a trustless environment where you don’t have to worry about the integrity of the dApp creators. Infinitus encrypts and stores your private data on a decentralized network and the smart contract takes care of retrieving it when a predetermined trigger event takes place (say, an inactivity period which you set when you key in the password/private key you want to protect). We don’t store the private data, we cannot retrieve it for you and we cannot alter it in any way.
Building a decentralized, trustless system that is at the same time safe and easy to use were our main priorities and the prime reasons why we wanted to build a dApp as opposed to a classic App.
Scenarios In Which Infinitus Can Help
Cryptocurrency users face a real problem of losing their crypto possessions because of forgotten passwords and lost private keys. It’s actually a more common problem than you think and Infinitus is designed to help with it by acting as a smart designation repository and protecting your private data.
The scenarios in which a user can lose private data are many, ranging from faulty hardware to physical loss of it. A laptop or an USB stick can breakdown and your phone can be easily lost or even stolen. If this happens, the Infinitus dApp automatically detects an inactivity and sends the data you’ve stored to the person you’ve designated. Remember, the data is not stored on your phone or on our servers. It’s all on the blockchain, in a decentralized network so it’s safe from physical risks and even cyber attacks.
Infinitus can also act as means for transfer of wealth. You can make sure that your loved ones “inherit” your crypto assets if something unexpected were to happen to you. You can use Infinitus to give them access to your crypto wallet by setting an inactivity period as the trigger event.
The 3rd Digital Revolution Has Begun
We are way past the 2009 days when Bitcoin was the only blockchain-based cryptocurrency. Now blockchain tech is entering our lives in more ways that we thought possible 10 or even 5 years ago and has the potential to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges
We are living in the Digital Age and Data is the new currency. But every currency must be protected and Infinitus can make this task easier by putting blockchain at your fingertips. Literally.
