BLOCK CHAIN TECHNOLOGY

Block chain technology is one of the most important inventions ever made since the invention of the internet. And it’s taking the world by storm. Block chain technologies are proving to revolutionalise various areas of life especially the Banking Sector. And very soon Banks that don’t adjust to this are bound to lose a lot of business.

In developing Africa, local Banks in have already lost approximately 60% of their business to mobile money platforms. I am not a prophet of doom but if you are banker today in a bank that does not upgrade to Blockchain; chances are that in the next 6 years you may not have a job. These Banks have been overcharging and cheating clients in many in different ways. From obscene fees, exorbitant interest rates on credit, to broad-day theft of funds from client accounts, but with blockchain and cryptocurency all this is set to change.

Block chain technology comes with advantages like

1. Transparency/everybody can verify transactions
2. Effortless transfer of value
3. Very cheap(almost free) transaction costs
4. Super fast and instant transactions
5. Borderless transactions/Borderless Global economy
6. Inflation proof currency(digital currency)

The advent of the Blockchain has given birth to Digital Currencies like Bitcoin, steem, Litecoin and many others. Indeed we are living in a digital World where everything is getting digitalised! Including money and payment systems. Gone are the analogue days.

Digital currency was first predicted by Bill Gates 20 years ago, in one of his books where he said that.... “The future of transactions will be Digital, Global and almost free.” Well the future that this visionary global icon was predicting is here with us today... we can choose to embrace it or stay behind.

The current banking system brought the world to its knees as we witnessed the Global financial crisis in 2008. Many people that were millionaires before 2005 by 2008 they were paupers and dead broke! This was mainly caused by the various economic malpractices committed by Governments and Central Banks across the World especially in the big Economies an example of such was uncontrolled printing and issuing of money that was not backed by securities, Gold Or did not match the level of economic activity.

Expert had to find a long lasting solution to such problems. It was then that block chain Technology and Digital Currency were born. The idea was to create a currency system that would be independent of Governments, a currency that would be fixed in supply, transparent (no more currency created outside the system) and a currency whose value grows over time.

We have often witnessed that money in Africa is printed recklessly by sitting Governments to finance election campaigns and after elections inflation sinks the countries!

In 2009 Bitcoin became the first digital currency that was developed. It was done as pilot project to help solve the challenges of the Credit crunch or Global Financial crisis. Bitcoin was a very successful project. The Bitcoin Algorithm was preset to mine 21million Bitcoin. In 2009 the initial price of a Bitcoin was set at 10cents or $0.1 but with time as the world continued to get educated and realise the advantages of CryptoCurrencies, excessive demand has seen the price of Bitcoin skyrocket to at least $2,800 per Bitcoin and making many speculators millions of Dollars.

There is a famous story that was featured in The Guardian of 2013 of a Norwegian student who during his research during a final year project landed on the Bitcoin concept in 2010 on the internet and out of curiosity he invested $27, later he even forgot about the investment. In 2013 when Bitcoin hit $1,200, it was the talk of everybody around the world. This student went to open his account and he had even forgot the password, when the password was recovered he logged into the account only to find that his Bitcoin were now worth $886,000 and he used this windfall to purchase a luxury apartment. This classic story illustrates the power of digital currency.

It remains to be seen how the world will respond to the rise of digital currencies.