Forget self-driving cars — make way for self-paying cars…
- Nic Cary, Co-Founder of Blockchain, on how the future of payment could be cars that negotiate deals, not just roads
- “We can build an open, fair and accessible financial future, for anyone with an internet connected device.”
- A clear lane in traffic, or instantly helping people in need: if you could use money in small, discreet ways, what would you do?
TOA.life’s first conversation with blockchain pioneers delved into how the core technology might revolutionise our life in a fundamental way — by shifting power from the trunk (i.e. governments, corporations) to the leaves (i.e. the individual).
The blockchain has already made huge waves in decentralised crypto-currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Money is the first area where we’ll consciously experience the Blockchain affecting our lives. But how?
Nic Cary is Co-Founder & President at Blockchain.com, a platform that makes key products, like wallets and APIs, for the Bitcoin ecosystem. At TOA Berlin 2016 he spoke about the free-market spirit of Bitcoin (see video below), and in this exclusive Q&A, explains how your financial future might pan out — in ways you might never expect…
TOA.life: Nic, first of all, how do you introduce people to the idea of the blockchain and Bitcoin?
Nic Cary, Blockchain: The blockchain is a big spreadsheet in the cloud that anyone can use to keep track of who owns what. Bitcoins are simply an instrument for which you can record a transaction. This system has been running without interference, 365 days a year, non-stop for over eight years now.
The Bitcoin blockchain can settle and clear transactions using computers without the need for banks, or merchant processors, foreign exchange markets or any middlemen at all.
TOA.life: The possibilities of the blockchain are far-reaching and revolutionary in allowing people to control access and ownership of things of value to them. What does this mean for money itself? Will we actually approach the act of spending differently?
NC: Humans have invented many things to improve their lives. We used to live in caves, we used to walk barefoot, and we used to rely on spoken word to tell stories. We now live in grand cities, we invented the wheel, and written language transformed our ability to store and retain data. Our ability to optimise our surroundings has made us unique as a species.
Throughout our development, we have tried many different types of money and relied on complex and expensive intermediaries to help us perform transactions. From rocks, to pearls, gold and cash: money has taken different forms — but banks and middlemen have always performed the same function, acting as interfaces between parties.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to think about what properties money would need to have to be more effective, as more of us become digitally native?
Bitcoin has fundamentally altered our relationship to value.
For money to be effective it needs to be counterfeit-proof and it should be fungible. In the age of the internet, it should be secure, and you should be able to transact with it instantly.
Bitcoin — which is the most popular digital money — has all of these properties and more. In fact, by using the blockchain as its core technology, Bitcoin has fundamentally altered our relationship to value.
TOA.life: If value systems are being re-written and decentralised, does this mean that governments need to change too — will political power decentralise to the majority?
NC: Ultimately these technologies are only as powerful as they are useful and adopted. The same argument was probably made when the Gutenberg printing press was invented: while some institutions lost a monopoly on the written “word”, an abundance of new industries and opportunities were formed.
I profoundly believe that technologies are agnostic, and it’s what people choose to do with them that matters.
We can build an open, fair and accessible financial future, for anyone with an internet connected device. That’s a big deal.
TOA.life: Technological innovation is predicted to happen at an exponential rate. How will blockchain-based money systems mature in the next few years?
NC: Blockchain technology is still in its infancy, but we’ve come a long way — dare I say, an exponential distance — from where we were a few years ago. Fundamentally, these systems still need to solve many complex issues. But the potential is very compelling:
We can bring billions of people into the economic influence of the internet. We can unlock capital formation in ways that were impossible before. We can build an open, fair and accessible financial future, for anyone with an internet connected device. That’s a big deal.
TOA.life: Finally — what is your vision of a fully-Blockchain-enabled world? In ten years’ time, how will our day-to-day lives have been affected?
NC: I hope that in ten years’ time most people in the world will be relying on blockchain-enabled technologies without really knowing it. Imagine a world of inter-connected devices that negotiate with each other to our benefit:
- A self-driving car that pays other cars to get out of the way on the road when you’re running late.
- A refrigerator — with its own budget — that can order cold beer for you and have it dropped off by drone delivery.
- Payments getting into the hands of affected people in disaster areas instantly, from millions of donors all over the world.
Software will ultimately obfuscate the complexities and simply harness the value proposition of a more secure, affordable, inclusive, and open protocol for innovation and development.
Imagine it, and it will be true.
Nic wants an accessible, open and secure future, and delivered an insightful talk about the Blockchain’s role in the future of property rights at TOA Berlin 2016 — here’s the video of the full session as well as an exclusive Q&A from this industry-leader. Don’t forget to read TOA.life’s first conversation with Blockchain pioneers, either!
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