The “Bit” and the “Coin”: The two huge opportunities hidden inside bitcoin
By SANTI SUBOTOVSKY, guest author at Pando.com
Most people think of bitcoin as a mere replacement for fiat money, or what we think of as “cash.” While currency is the best-known application of the bitcoin protocol, there are even more compelling disruption opportunities outside the finance world that we’ve barely even begun to tap into. So, when people ask me about bitcoin, I like to explain that there are two things going on here: the bitcoinprotocol (the Bit) and a bitcoin currency (the Coin).
The “Bit” Side of Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s biggest disruption is the distributed system in which every transaction is shared and available on a public database, known as the blockchain. It sounds complex, but it is not. In essence, the bitcoin protocol simply enables a decentralized database to track ownership of assets. The beauty in this over-simplification is that assets can be anything from physical to virtual.
It’s the simplicity of the concept that creates the most fascinating applications. The bitcoin protocol has both the potential and the promise to disrupt major industries as we now know them. Every industry where a third party exists to track ownership of assets could potentially be disrupted by an application built on the blockchain. Companies such as Ticketmaster (ticketing), Old Republic National Title Insurance Co. (property titles), and even the venerable New York Stock Exchange (stock exchanges), could be entirely disrupted by next-generation counterparties leveraging the blockchain.
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Picture source: FlashBuddy at Pixabay.
