The truth about the mysteries of blockchain technology
Other than the perennial fearmongering stories, the first I really took notice of Bitcoin was when my neighbour sold his holding and started renovating his house. It intrigued me; the biggest risk I’d seen him take was leaving the car unlocked while he was paying for fuel, yet here he was knee-deep in crypto.
At the time — mid 2022 — crypto currencies were springing up everywhere. And they were just as quickly going under. It was around this period that even the clubs in the English Premier League were floating crypto assets to their fan bases. It didn’t end well — a lot of supporters were left out of pocket.
It was in this fog of misinformation and misery that I was drawn into the blockchain world myself. A professor I’d done some work with told me a contact of his wanted a book written, and put the two of us together. It changed my outlook on blockchain, my understanding of the world order, and perhaps, even, my life.
The first step was to read Satoshi’s Bitcoin whitepaper. It wasn’t at all what I expected; it wasn’t the kind of business plan that puffed itself up and flirted with investors, it was a surprisingly short, scientific and almost philanthropic look at how to solve the problem of trust in bank transactions. Perhaps what surprised me most was that I understood it.
My new — still virtual at this stage — friend and I agreed to write a book together. We would begin with a face-to-face meeting in Melbourne. Still fuelled by my wariness of all things crypto and perhaps a little uneasy as a result of my research into the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, I made my way to our meeting, unsure of what I’d find when I got there.
What greeted me was like nothing I’d experienced before. A life in corporate Australia had groomed me in what to expect in A-grade office spaces and this was not it. There was no receptionist. There were hardly any desks. Few people even. I’d been hoping that a visit to the office would wipe away the shadow of uncertainty that had begun following me about — but in those first few moments, the light actually faded further.
My friend came to greet me. We strolled to his office with barely a glimpse of anyone else around. Then we began to talk. I learned that this was a start-up, a blockchain-based business at the cutting-edge of technology. And through our conversations, the message came loud and clear: while blockchain was the technology behind Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies, the two weren’t the same thing at all.
The brief was to show how blockchain technology had the power to revolutionise society. At the outset, I almost laughed at the sheer ambition of what we would be trying to achieve — but the more I learned about blockchain, the more I began to see its potential.
I went away thinking how I would tell this story. How would I find a way to weave a blockchain-based narrative into the politics of the world and the state of the global economy? I wondered how I would even find sufficient information to start, let alone finish.
But I needn’t have worried. It turned out I was in the presence of greatness. And the more we talked, the more a blockchain solution to almost every problem in society seemed plausible. Within just a few meetings, the benefits became obvious. I’m even sure my mouth fell open at points, rather like a stone-age man seeing a wheel for the first time.
Forget misinformation and misery, blockchain, it transpired, was misunderstood. The bluster that shrouded the crypto world served only to detract from the sheer potential of this staggering new technology. In fact, from what I could tell, the only mystery was why blockchain wasn’t already more embedded in every aspect of our society.
