On November 18, William M. Peaster, of Blockonomi.com, published an article entitled ‘Walmart, Nestle & Other Big Companies Continue Making Blockchain Inroads“. In it, he looked at well-known corporations that are now making public their intentions to employ blockchain. For Fintech professionals and many high-level executives, this comes as no surprise.
For some time, the corporate world has been exploring the potentials of blockchain technology. Keep in mind, that the blockchain-based enterprise solutions that conventional corporate thinkers are looking at often diverge significantly from established blockchains like Bitcoin. Blockchains and cryptocurrencies were designed to be decentralized. While this sometimes remains part of corporate planning, Facebook’s Libra demonstrates that centralized agendas tend to prevail within large organizations.
The focus of the Peaster article begins with Walmart and Nestle announcing their intentions. IBM provides an enterprise solution for blockchain that’s growing in popularity. Amazon and Alibaba also have products out there already. While the decentralized aspect of a blockchain are important, many professionals within the new industry believe that the attention that household names bring will prove to be good for innovation.
Blockchains are sometimes referred to as distributed ledger technology (DLT). The distributed characteristic would imply decentralization as multiple copies of the record exist. However, DLTs tend to guarantee transparency rather than the permission-less and all-access features of Bitcoin and other decentralized ledgers.
A blockchain is less of a thing than a system. The term refers to a group of technologies employed in a specific way. Cryptocurrencies have been invaluable to blockchain technology. Just consider how one would otherwise exchange value in a system devoid of hierarchy and permissions. Here is where decentralization becomes essential.
At the moment, most Internet technologies are based on permissions. A person, and thus human error, is involved in every critical function that happens in traditional digital systems. Blockchains remove human error all the way down to the two parties that enact a transaction. Such a revolutionary concept was not easy to manifest because the environment of hackers with malicious intent that plague the modern Internet.
Blockchain technology prevents against hacking so well that a new term is used to describe system threats. Bad players (actors), only achieve limited influence on a blockchain because a majority of network participants provide independent validation of the records for every entry. As can be seen, security alone is a reason for corporations to adopt the technology.
