What is Blockchain? What are NFTs? Why should I care?
Back in 2005, the boom of the technology was Web 2.0. Everything went mobile and the complete world got on the internet. Could you believe that back in 1991 people thought that internet is just a fad and will wear out in a year or two. Well today we are in 2021 and we have all the rights to laugh in their faces.
Blockchain is currently a hot topic everywhere and all the big tech guys are talking about it, explaining to the common public the essence of this technology. I intend to give a short perspective about how this thing could be a next boom as web 2.0.
Blockchain isn’t a new technology, its foundation was layed back in 1990s , however it got popular when a term “Bitcoin” got popular. Bitcoin came up in 2009 and raised exponentially till 2012 , everyone thought that it was a bubble and will burst one day. Last I checked the people who invested in Bitcon back then are muiltimillionares right now and have already been harvesting those profits from all these years.
Blockchain works on a the principle of decentralizing the data and keep the data on a peer to peer network. Right now the internet works on something like this image
In blockchain we basically have blocks of data and all of them are connected to one other, in a similar fashion as linked list. Now, each device has these blockchains and now there is not a single server which holds the data, but rather now the data has been decetralized on a peer to peer network.
So what does decentralization of the data do?
Well it does quite a lot of things, this decentralization provides the supreme security of the data on the internet. In order to hack this decentralized system one needs to hack each and every device connected to the network. Pretty sure that’s quite impossible. The supreme security of this technology is what is powering up the cryptocurrencies and thus the hype.
The other uses of blockchain would be to use it in voting for elections , as each person would be able to cast only one vote and the system can’t be hacked. In real estates it will simply cut the middle men between the buyer and seller. It could also be used in maintaining health records. These are just a few ideas which are quite popular rightnow and this is just the beginning of the chaos, a lot is still left to mine.
What is NFT ?
Non Fungible Token is connecting blockchain to the art world. In today’s world what does a blue tick on Twitter/Instagram mean to you. The blue tick is a proof check that this person is verified and genunine. NFTs are the same blue ticks but for art pieces. All the artists out there will be able to mark their art as a property of theirs and trade it on internet. No piracies, no middlemen , nothing, artists will be able to sell their art to direct buyers.
So basically digital pieces of art, it could be anything a digital painting , a video clip of the last goal in the finals of the football world cup anything. People enjoy buying collectibles right, they are willing to pay ton of money to get rare collectibles as these are the assets that add up to their value. Well now my friends we are in the digital era of the collectibles.
Well these are very early times and people are already investing in NFTs , the next couple of years would be so chaotic and when the dusts settles there would be some people who would end up with a lot of fortune and some who lost their savings. Ain’t giving a warning or something , but yeah in this particular time period no one could predict what steps in the blockchain will lead to heavy returns in the future. Its a big gamble, high risk , high reward.
Hope you enjoyed this little read about the buzzwords!! ;)
