F I F T E E N

KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS TECHNOLOGY

_{Disclaimer: I am not an investment advisor. Everything I talk about is my opinion only. There are always risks involved when investing. This is purely informational and not investment advice. Crypto is EXTREMELY volatile. Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose in ALL investing situations.} 

Blockchain

With the power of our minds mixed with the powers of the computer, internet, technology is evolving at an exponential rate. I have this gut feeling that it is accelerating at even faster speeds than we can keep up with, knowledge-wise. Every so often, this new technology is so far-fetched and crazy that it just hovers around for about five to six years, and then one day, when you blink, it takes off like a rocket. It happened with computers, it happened with the internet in the form of web browsing and social media, and it’s happening again as I write this book. Right now, this is precisely the case with blockchain technology — Web 3.0. 

I’ll admit I had no idea what blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, smart contracts, NFTs (if you’re an artist, this would be something to look into), or cryptocurrency was, and I have very little education on the subject. Still, I’m dedicating myself to learning it because I think it is the future. The transformation is already happening.

For example, El Salvador just made a big splash by being the first country to make bitcoin the country’s legal tender. I also read an article in The Economist that China and the United States are in the works/talks of creating a GovCoin, a digital currency that is centralized by the government–where bitcoin is decentralized, for now. The problem is people are just starting to figure out social media and Web 2.0, but while they were learning a TikTok dance, there was an update. 

These updates are bound to happen more periodically now in a digital age where information moves freaky fast. You have to train your mind to continue learning about technology to keep up with it, not only to reap the financial benefits that come with being early investors but to keep up with society–if that’s what you’re trying to do.

Long gone are the days when you could learn just one technology exceptionally well and make it through your life knowing just that information. Instead, we are sprinting through the technology revolution with robot legs, where more powerful technology evolutions happen more frequently and smaller technological advances daily. 

I am very cautious and somewhat nauseous, giving any examples of blockchain. I would strongly suggest going to sources that contain way more knowledge than myself – cough, cough, Google. MIT also has an entire course on blockchain from 2018 for free that I would highly recommend. However, I will pinpoint some problems that, from my understanding, blockchain can cure, starting with corruption. With each election, it seems that more news comes out about voting fraud. 

With ethereum, the technology can eliminate the middleman or woman, so to speak, which would be the people who tally the votes. It does this through very complex coding algorithms, which I definitely won’t get into, nor even understand. This technology knows when one person has already voted and doesn’t allow them to vote again. It also doesn’t involve any third party, so no chance of corrupt behavior. 

Another example I came upon while learning about blockchain was related to grocery shopping. Let’s say that you are trying only to eat organic foods now because you watched the latest documentary on Netflix and realized that every corporation that makes money is corrupt. You don’t trust the label maker for a particular product, so with blockchain, there would be a QR code that you can scan with your phone, much like the ones in restaurants now. Once you scan the code, you can see the complete history of that product: Where it’s made, who it was farmed by, what products are used, etc. All this information is in a “blockchain.” The blockchain is supposedly impossible to manipulate or tamper with. 

With this technology, we, the people, are decentralized from big corporations and big banks. It also removes third parties from any transactions. As you watch this movement continue to move forward, I have a strange sense that there will be significant backlash from these big corporations and governments because they see the future with blockchain, and it’s very dim for them. On the other hand, if you do your job and learn about this new technology, the future can be very bright for you. 

S I X T E E N

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