If you were introduced to the internet in 1992 you may have made the mistake that email is the internet, and for a very long time, email and the internet was indistinguishable.

wasn’t until 1995 that the web came along together with more applications, and it wasn’t until that time that the internet was seen for what is really is, a platform to innovate upon. The greatest thing about the internet is that it is open to everyone and that anyone can innovate on it, without asking for permission. It’s a network providing endless opportunities.Because of this, the internet (or Satoshi Nakamoto), gave us bitcoin.

Blockchain and bitcoin

The blockchain is a public ledger that records bitcoin transactions. The blockchain provides a public ledger of transactions that is trusted, secure and shared. A novel solution accomplishes this without the force of any third party central authority. Maintenance of the blockchain is performed by a network of communicating nodes that is running bitcoin software. Payer X send Y bitcoins to receiver Z using readily available software applications. The transaction is validated and added to their own copy of the blockchain ledger, and then broadcasted to other nodes. The blockchain is a distributed database so in order to independently verify the chain of ownership of any and every bitcoin amount, each network node stores its own copy of the blockchain.There are many other cryptocurrencies and altcoins that are developing but the most famous one and the one which having received most funding is bitcoin.

Anyone can innovate on the blockchain

But Bitcoin is for blockchain, what email was for the internet in 1992. The only thing people use bitcoin for today is transactions. When applications are diversifying, you will be able to perform voting on the blockchain, register assets, write contracts without the force of a third party. Realizing that bitcoin is what email used to be and blockchain is the internet of ledgers and that wedon’t have to ask anyone for permission before innovating on it, is what makes it so incredible exciting!The blockchain is 6 years old, when the internet was 6 years old back in 1998 – how many really knew what the internet was capable of or even had access to it?

A blockchain-powered society

The blockchain ecosystem is moving incredible fast and the blockchain technology is developing to foster a new blockchain-powered society. Today more than 100,000 merchants accept bitcoin, some of the most notable are Expedia, WordPress, Shopify, Reddit and Virgin Galactic. One of the most interesting and secretive startups within the blockchain ecosystem is 21 Inc., it’s a stealth startup which has raised an incredible $116 million, and it hasn’t even launched yet. Almost every big name investor is in on it. The highly esteemed venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, RRE Ventures, along with Chinese private-equity firm Yuan Capital, with a strategic stake from chipmaker Qualcomm. Additionally, founders from various tech companies have invested in 21 Inc., including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, eBay co-founder Jeff Skoll, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi among others.The intent of 21 Inc. seems to be to create a core infrastructure and take bitcoin mainstream by embed it into “internet of things” and consumer electronics. With these names backing 21 Inc. What will the impact be of this launch?It is going to be extremely interesting to follow this space, along with the opportunities that will unfold. Want to discuss with Nina Kahn? Contact her via the details below.