Get Woke about Blockchain!

Ok, so you wake up one day, and suddenly everyone and their uncle is talking about Blockchain and Bitcoins — words that seem to have come out of a futuristic sci-fi movie but no one sent you the memo. Rest assured you are not alone. Blockchain technology is here and its here to stay. Let me help you get woke!

I recently spend the holidays chatting with my father-in-law — a retired English surgeon. As always, he likes to pick my brain about tech stuff. More recently I spent an hour helping him understand Apple music editing software, as he is an active jazz musician who dabbles in making albums to share with friends and family. This time, as we sat down with after-dinner drinks, he was very keen to know what all this cryptocurrency news was all about and whether it was true that something called a Bitcoin was worth really worth USD $24,000.

Well yes, it was ! — if for a moment. That aside, let’s get a handle on the world of Blockchain and Bitcoins and understand what that means not just in this 24,000 context but for the world, at large. First, let’s take a short trip way back to the history of Money.

Money, as we know it today, has roots in the system of exchange of goods and services, known as bartering. Over time, barter trade took on the new forms. Today instead of direct trading of product/ services for another product/service, humans decided…