Stainless Chain

The first decade of the 21st century was quite revolutionary for the whole world. The very first gradual change was described and proposed by Darwin, while the other, the modern global change was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto. If the evolution of humanity started from the monkeys, then the monkeys for the modern bitcoin would be paper money or cash. First, there were coupons, then there were coins, then paper money, then we got electronic plastic cards in our wallets, and now we have electronic wallets and instead of cash, we have Bitcoins. The process of money printing, in this case, is switched with the more advanced technology such as Blockchain which is gaining more popularity among different spheres.

Although the technology is being adopted by different companies and organisations, there can be interesting facts hiding behind the process and the structure itself that you might be interested in, especially when new currencies are coming up monthly and the era of crypto money has begun.

Personal Belonging

With the development of the cryptocurrencies developing your own currency can be very beneficial at some point especially at the governmental level. When there is the whole technology that is proof of flawless work, why would not one issue electronic currency which now is almost as expensive as the real paper money, moreover they are safer than cards and have significantly less impact on our environment?

The mining process that is responsible for the bitcoin “production” is strictly related to the money issuing, as for mining-specific hardware are needed as well as plenty of electricity. Considering the fact that Bitcoin mining uses more electricity than 159 countries, which consists of 29 TWh per year, it is still more efficient to develop a cryptocurrency rather than print money and produce coins. Some of the countries have already started thinking about implementing cryptocurrencies. The list of the countries consists of the world’s economic leaders, the US, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Japan and some of the European countries as well.

Talking about the development of the blockchain, it can be said that some of the companies are not thinking about issuing money, but rather are teamed up to build a digital ID network using blockchain technology to provide legal identification to 1.1 B people worldwide with no need for official documents. If you wonder who was the initiator, let me tell you it was Microsoft and the primary use was for blockchain-based ID network for refugees, illegal aliens and people who do not process any government-issued documents. The group of people that we have just mentioned counts of more than 1 billion across the globe and currently are unable to prove their identity, which should be a huge barrier for access to healthcare, education and other basic services.

Numbers say more than words

The number of people who are frequent users of the blockchain and generally cryptocurrencies increases day by day. Now it can be said that 0.5 percent of the world’s population is using blockchain technology for one or second reasons. If the percentage seems to be a small number, I can transfer it to an actual number which is somewhere around 40 million people. This is only after 10 years of implementing cryptocurrency in social life, imagine it in plus ten years? The number is going to be somewhere around 80 percent of the whole population.

If taking the latest rates, the blockchain technology has managed and distributed more than $270 billion transactions. Western Union has so far been the leader in money transactions, though the blockchain is now ahead of it, taking the leading position.

There are some structures and organs that own more or less than others. One of the biggest shareholders is the FBI, that owns 1.5 percent of the world’s total bitcoins. The FBI has been involved in the crypto world even since the frauds and money laundering cases started spiking. The agency had quite a valid fund for fighting cyber-crimes in Bitcoin. As you might have noticed the blockchain technology market is not only used by the financial experts of the businessmen, which consequently increases the revenue worth of the blockchain. It is said that the revenue worth will accumulate over 20 billion dollars by 2024.

Not only the revenue can get higher with the bitcoin and the blockchain method, but it can also reduce the infrastructure costs as well. Especially for the banks. Banks all over the world spend a lot of money on the infrastructure and the IT department in order to support the methods that usually are outdated data storage. The insecurity is that those methods store a variety of information about clients and many sensitive data, which sometimes does not have proper security. In this case, the blockchain is the way that offers to store sensitive and private information safely, with encrypted and millions of storage points, none of which contains the full information package. This blockchain technology can reduce costs by up to 30 percent.

It is all about the advancing of the technology

As mentioned previously, more people become involved in blockchain activity. Some leaders who are quite active users as well assume that it plays a vital role in the development and advancement of the technology. Technological advances can be seen in every sphere including one of the most important and far going - shipping and logistics.

Not only personal users, but the governments are also planning to invest more in the blockchain technology. Apart from reducing the time and risk of enforcing regulatory compliance, blockchain-based technologies can help government organisations increase their transparency and establish clear audit trails.

Blockchain in variety

There were not many instances of blockchain use in the healthcare industry back in 2015. The number of blockchain healthcare applications was insignificant and you could count the number of users on the fingers of one hand. However, as the stories of the blockchain’s efficiency and security started spreading, more and more users from the healthcare branch started experimenting. It is estimated that 55% of the healthcare industry’s administrative needs will be conducted using blockchain tech by 2025.

Together with healthcare, enterprises seem to be investing in the blockchain projects as well. The average amount of money companies have spent in the development of the blockchain method is approximately 1 million throughout the last year only. With this being said, it should be also mentioned that different businesses and not only businesses but charity and NGO sectors accept donations and funding in the cryptos. More than $69 million was donated last year in Bitcoin and other cryptos.

There are some very large companies in the world that are exploring blockchain. It is already established that most companies are planning to move their transactions to the blockchain. The list of the companies looks very fancy indeed, consisting of Walmart, Microsoft, Apple, Bank of China, Bank of America and several more. Anyway by 2020, 77 percent of the financial sector will adopt blockchain as part of their system. The main reason behind it is that the vast majority are planning to incorporate it into their business by that period.

Some Facts

The maximum and total amount of Bitcoin that can ever exist is 21M, they say. Once the number is reached Bitcoin can not be issued any more, and well we all have to rely on some other initiatives, but before we still have some millions remaining.

Have you ever wondered who was the first person to pay by bitcoin or when did it happen? Well, maybe yes, maybe no, we are going to tell you anyway.

The first Bitcoin purchase was for pizza where two Papa John’s pizzas were exchanged by Laszlo Hanyecz for 10K BTC on 22 May 2010. Yes, yes, we know what a pity was it not to save those coins for a bit later. Especially that in only five years, Peter Saddington purchased Lamborghini Huracan for 45 Bitcoins, while Laszlo had only pizza, which would have had a worth of 100 million dollars today. Well, I guess that was the most expensive pizza in the world and really hope that it was extremely delicious.