Is Blockchain All Hype And No Substance?

Everyone who is anyone in the computer industry has been fueling the buzz about blockchain tech. It has been heralded as completely revolutionary, a new way to manage and store data, and an extremely secure alternative to what we are used to.

But can it live up to the hype, or has Bitcoin proven that there are severe flaws with the tech? In this post, we will clear up some of the confusion.

Bitcoin And Blockchain Are Two Different Things

First and foremost, we must understand that Bitcoin is simply an application that runs on blockchain tech. Bitcoin was the first application run on this technology and was a testing ground for it. But blockchain is capable of a lot more than cryptocurrency transfers.

Cryptocurrencies make the headlines the most because of their widely varying values, but the tech can be applied in many industries. Take Ethereum, for example, where the purpose of the network was to create a platform for developers rather than a straight crypto investment.

Stefan, the main editor, and co-founder of BitFortune, claims it has plenty of other uses. He and his team emphasized six ways blockchain technology has impacted various industries. Since negative feelings toward new things and innovative solutions often seem to outweigh the positive sides, it’s always interesting to hear what the other party says.

Bitcoin Has Scaling Issues

Most people don’t realize that Bitcoin was first implemented in 2009. That is close to a decade ago. Since the rapid development of computer capabilities, that is practically the dark ages.

The app that started it all was meant to be a trial to see if the software could work. Back then, not a lot of thought went into how to upscale it at a later stage. Considering that the currency only started gaining widespread acceptance in 2017, this wasn’t a problem.

When there were still only a few users on the network, it was easy to mine blocks and process transactions. As a security measure, a block size of 1MB was introduced. This places severe limits on the application’s ability to process transactions.

As more and more users join the network and more transactions are added, this data limit becomes even more important. As the network size increases, mining blocks become increasingly difficult and less profitable for miners.

This has a knock-on effect on the network. The fewer mining blocks, the longer it takes to process transactions. To make it more profitable for miners again, transaction fees must increase. Since one of the advantages initially was lower transaction fees, this has a negative impact.

It Is Open Source

Enough doom and gloom. In its way, Bitcoin can be considered a rip-roaring success. There are problems now, but that is thanks to its popularity. The good news is that developers wanting to implement blockchain-based apps can learn from this experience.

The software is open-source, meaning developers can freely use it and change it to make their apps work. It’s what makes this a fascinating technology to keep an eye on. It is still in its nascent phase.

2018 was the first year we saw planning in this sector move into workable applications.

We Don’t Understand It Properly Yet.

At one stage, the world wide web consisted of several websites. And, by the handful, we mean something like 40 websites. Considering that by the end of 2017, the number of internet users globally was just under 3.7 billion, that figure seems unreal.

But it is a testament to how far we have come. The concept of the Internet was initially introduced in 1989. This means it went from a handful of users to 3.7 billion in under three decades.

How is this relevant to blockchain tech? Many experts believe that this tech is the next WWW. We’re only ten years into this now, but who knows what will happen when it becomes a more widely accepted concept?

Think about it for a moment – today, we google for everything. We can access the web of several devices and have technology built to support its use.

What happens when blockchain-based applications become as common as phone apps and tech advances?