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I read the following article by  Ioanna Fotopoulou on her steemit acount.(https://steemit.com/@ioannafo)

I liked her thoughts about blockchain technology being implemented in different fields,other than crypto world.
I would love to hear your thoughts about it!

The link to the article:https://steemit.com/blockchain/@ioannafo/is-blockchain-the-new-enemy


Although blockchain is the technology that was originally created to support the well-known Bitcoin, which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary; and although blockchain is considered in general to be the technology of the cryptocurrency world, we see nowadays this same technology to advance exponentially and to have uses that are implemented in many different pillars of our digital ecosystem as we know it today.

Because of an aspect called decentralization, blockchain technology promises a future where we can collect data along with personal information and store them in a secure way, offering transparency, atomization, and traceability. A great example of this use in everyday life can be a small business, which using this technology is actually able to minimize technology and security costs of their online assets while at the same time provides higher quality services faster, in a more transparent way and a safer way coming to their customers’ data.

What is magical about blockchain is that we can use it to transfer or receive payments. You can tell me, sure but we can still do this with banks. We already know how to do this, it feels safe, thus why fix something that ain’t broken?
Well, I will reply with yet another example: Let’s hypothesize that we want to send money from Greece to Zambia. Or from Australia to Montenegro.

Now let’s investigate:

Is such a transfer safe? Well in terms of percentages, the majority of the times your money will arrive. And this is ok.

Is such a transfer fast? Well, NO! Of course not. Such transfers can take up to 10 days to be completed.

Is such a transfer economically viable? Well, for small amounts of money NO. Why? Because all these middlemen, the banks involved in the transaction keep a percentage of your money as payment for the services they provide to you.
Now with blockchain, the idea is there should be no middlemen. And thus, the transactions can be way faster and the fees so much lower.

Is this happening? Well yes and no. There are many promising companies like for example Volentix.io that they aspire to create a peer-to-peer network where the fees are close to zero and the transactions happen really fast.

There are also some more exchanges that strive to become decentralized. We are going in the direction where your money is actually yours. You have them and you owe them.

Today you say you have ownership of your money, but basically, your money is simply a bank statement. And the banks are controlled by the governments. Once a government, for example, imposes capital controls {the case of Greece 3 summers ago. and many other countries worldwide} then all of a sudden you do not have access to your own money anymore!

Last but not least, let’s talk GDPR. Blockchain is reinventing the way we share & store our data. It reduces the fear of cyber-attacks, therefore creating a safer environment for online transactions; with traceability being another big issue. But I have to talk about this to a next article.

All in all, the conclusion is simple: Blockchain technology is not just made for the crypto world. We should seriously consider the advantages and just accept it in the global market!

I just read her article, upvoted and left a comment. What I have noticed that since the difficulties we faced in the Southern Peripheral European States, such as Greece and Cyprus, many forward and outside of the box thinking people have turned to the Blockchain for solutions to their traditional financial problems that the old political and economical systems could not fix. The Blockchain gives individuals, corporations, small and large investors and even Governments an easier way to share and access data than ever before, that married with Artificial Intelligence will help to solve societal and fiscal problems much faster than in previous generations before us. I am very hopeful for the future. My Wife is also Greek and she was one of the very first women in Crypto at the time.

it still depends, what if the blockchain is decentralized? there is no entity that can actually interfere with it, so this means that blockchain will become enemy based on us on how we use it.

Blockchain can be your own enemy & that's for sure, you can die at any moment without leaving your etail for your family to withdraw those cryptos (in paper or external HD or...), that's kinda of a nightmare too.
I remember this news i rea coupe day ago about that canadian exchange owner who died & was the only responsible of the cold wallet, he died & all the info die with him (the private keys &....)

This is something to consider as blockchain can be your own enemy, other than that, blockchain is more than great.

I totally agree with you. Blockchain is not our enemy. It can address a lot of problems existing in our society today. It might address even the corruption if the project is designed so well and meticulously. I can see that there is a good future for all of us if blockchain technology is implemented in a good way.

Blockchain has advantages and disadvantages. There is no doubt about it. So, better to used blockchain where it can be maximized rather than pushing to replace the existing financial process but we know will just bring disadvantage. Blockchain can be used aside from financial transaction like in health care and hiring process. Developers should focus first on fields where blockchain has potential to be an asset rather than disadvantage.

Everything all has its two sides. No one knows when they die but everyone all wants their money is guaranteed the safest and blockchain is doing well its mission

People want to make money whenever they can. Projects with monetized infrastructure are being created. This creates certain flaws that might not be. As long as people's greed prevails over the desire to build an ideal society, there will always be opportunities for flaws.
For example (maybe it's too paranoid), the blockchain will penetrate into all spheres of human life, will become a fully controlled state, ensuring full transparency, as well as complete control. Everyone will know everything about you. Maybe even what you think. Do you like it?
Thus, the big question, blockchain for us is an enemy or friend.

Blockchain can be used in any area of life, and most new projects are aimed at this. So I think the opposite is not an enemy, but a means of improvement and mass distribution.

Money transfer companies are under threat because it is cheaper and quicker to use crypto instead. Also it is transparent with all data publicly available of the blockchain

That depends on the creator of the blockchain itself if you are seeing bitcoin and the bitcoin blockchain has been created to make sure there will be no centralized system on the bitcoin. the creator of blockchain itself can decide it. There is some weakness in the blockchain system.

Thank you for your response. I really can tell that we are on the same page considering this article. My thoughts were the same. Blockchain is not our enemy at all, and yes it can solve many of our problems.

Please share more of your thoughts. Why you think Blockchain will not help in the financial situation?

The question is not what can be used in any sphere of life, but whether the introduction of a blockchain is necessary everywhere

Problem is that blockchain makes project much more expensive. In most cases blockchain is not really needed. So then this project that works on blockchain cant compete with same project that runs on classic centralized database.

This is not the case with money. Money have great use case in blockchain.

I agree that many projects don't need blockchain. Some are using blockchain only because the governments give out some grants for such projects.
But I don't agree that blockchain makes projects much more expensive.

You should not compare private projects to the scale of Bitcoin.


Logistics can use blockchain at a large scale too. Just in the case of logistics one may have to discard the too old blocks to avoid growing too large.


Anything that has an origin and a destination and has to be handled by different entities which don't necessarily trust each other can make a great use of blockchain.

yes you are right there are some projects that don't require a blockchain to operate the service. but they still force it, finally their platform cannot compete with the existing platform.