Thought of as a panacea for all internet evils, blockchain remains a utopian idea for now
By Krish Pillai
Bitcoin network, the pseudonym for decentralized blockchain network, is at the crossroads. Innovative computer artisans are creating new products on the fly for profits without any consideration for their quality and usability.
Imagine the spaceX software being developed by the flight crew while on a mission to Mars. That is what is happening to blockchain.
For widespread acceptance of blockchain, new frameworks being developed should try to eliminate the burden of proof of stake, token incentives and scalability.
The framework needs to be reinvented to be autonomous and secure, while eliminating high resources burden, and drastically improve transactions speed.
Read: Lure of Bitcoins: Greed blinds even the wise to risks (February 24, 2021)
The need of the time is to create an intelligent decentralized nodal network system, independent of TCP-IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) or layered over it, that can speed up transaction processing to match the high speed network of today’s usage.
It is hard to conceive a network of that nature now, but it will evolve to be a dream-network in a decade or less. Integration of Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms are the key to success.
Standards need to be developed in all these new and innovative areas of technologies before the products are developed and marketed for public use.
No doubt, Blockchain is going to be the next generation Internet technology. It will also revolutionize the internet usage by adding additional security, distributed processing, immutable ledger database, cryptographic data handling, and secure communication systems, all using the existing TCP-IP architecture.
For those who are interested, it is the right time to learn more about it — its architecture, programming languages, token concepts, domain specific languages and interoperability, scalability and many more.
Academia like MIT, global financial institutions, distributed investors, and ingenious software developers communities worldwide are working round the clock behind the scene to launch their products and services in a robust manner in the near future.
Information Technology entrepreneurs with the right background, passion and enthusiasm can benefit immensely as the field is wide open.
Among the three competing blockchain platforms such as Ethereum, Hyperledger and Cardano, at the time of this write-up it is hard to say which one is going to be accepted widely.
However, Cardano being latest is being developed with more bells and whistles than others with the blessings of academic leaders and peer review communities.
It is an exciting time to join in any of these platforms to build a solid career in emerging technologies market place.
Present implementations of blockchain technology have many headwinds to face in comparison to the current implementations of internet as we are familiar with.
Read: Cryptocurrency: A serious threat; Blockchain: A revolution underway (July 6, 2021)
Blockchain is being thought of as a panacea for all internet evils. However it is a utopian idea for sometime to come.
Security and privacy are major issues facing the internet users, small and large now, and it going to remain as-is for a long time.
Blockchain with its distributed architecture, immutable ledger, cryptographic data handling, self-governing decentralized networks, and self-supporting infrastructure costs are noble notions for the future.
Blockchain implementation hurdles are, interoperability, scalability, sustainability and acceptability.
There are no real breakthroughs in overcoming these hurdles now, although innovative ideas are being experimented in certain frameworks being developed.
Read: As Bitcoins frenzy catches on in the US, it may be banned in India (December 30, 2013)
Hopefully by the end of this decade, we can expect to have one or more reasonably well architected internet platforms running blockchain technology in full-steam implementation.
(Krish Pillai is a former business owner and Information Technology consultant for over thirty years. A former IIT Delhi student and IIT Madras staff member, he lives in Washington DC metro area.)