The world is challenged by a crisis of trust, a blockchain startup will fix this

Blockchain ensures trust between strangers that transact digitally. They make it difficult to cheat. Early adopters of this technology will be the ones who will disrupt the centralised economics that makes the rich, richer.

I was in Hyderabad for NVIDIA’s Developer Connect and happened to join a conversation with two very influential people from the Hyderabad startup ecosystem. They were talking about how difficult and scary the future of startups and innovation is looking like, survival is getting difficult and how the big 4s will and is almost doing everything to crush innovations coming from young and agile teams.

I somehow managed to barge in a point that “Blockchain will disrupt this”. Much of the hype around Blockchain talks about its potential to fundamentally change the financial services industry but the impact goes beyond financial services.

Blockchain technology is complex, but the idea is simple. On the Blockchain architecture, trust is established, not by powerful intermediaries like banks, governments and technology companies, but through mass collaboration and clever code which is immutable and open sourced. Blockchain ensures trust between strangers that transact digitally. They make it difficult to cheat. Early adopters of this technology will be the ones who will disrupt the centralised economics that makes the rich, richer.

Blockchain is in very nascent stages of adoption, think like if someone came to you in 1992 and said, “Hey, there’s this thing called the Internet. Let me explain how billions and billions of dollars of value are going to be created in entirely new business models,” how would you have reacted? Well, maybe not, you, but most people?

Who will outsmart big 4s a startup? Perhaps, Yes! The survival of a startup depends on its ability to outperform competition by attracting and rewarding talent, ideas and capital. It’s all about sustaining the momentum to build team, technology and traction.

Cost of transactions and friction in communication has drastically declined because of the internet, new platforms emerged, delivering goods and services at a speed and efficiency previously unimaginable. Internet gave us the ability to source talent (Upwork), get services (Uber, AirBnb), even raise capital (Kickstarter, Angelist) atleast for some.

All these solutions rely on traditional platforms to aggregate the intentions of the crowd, source expertise and redistribute returns. So while the information was freely flowing thanks to the internet, the flow of value was not.

Through online reputation, graph algorithms and feedback systems, platforms were able to create global marketplaces to match peer to peer supply & demand more effectively than ever before. By providing curation and ensuring the safety of transactions, these new types of intermediaries were able to reap the returns of this first wave of digitization. Now, back to the point with blockchain there is no central point of authority and everything is stored on automated computers called “nodes” spread all over the world. This has the potential to break the pattern that’s controlled by the Big 4's

Just like radio, TV, the Internet, social, and mobile before it, block-chain technology presents an opportunity as well as a threat and will dramatically affect the way we operate. It will also give rise to a new set of competitors with different business models. We certainly do not have all the answers yet. We probably do not even have all the questions. What on test is the true power of community to build brands, institutions and org’s in an era of hyper-connected individuals.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)