Bitcoin is entering the era of practicality

Lamar Wilson is a programmer, web developer, serial entrepreneur, and loving father. He co-founded 212ths, a software development company, with Lafe Taylor, an old friend and co-founder of Fluent. Lamar is the co-founder and CEO of Fluent, a B2B payment platform built on the blockchain.

     As the end of the year approaches, it’s customary for people to start thinking about what’s going to happen next.

     We try to identify changes that will be more beneficial to our lives, businesses, and relationships. We want to do something different that will move us toward our desired outcomes.

     In this spirit, let’s discuss Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

     Bitcoin and blockchain technology are still in their infancy. However, millions of dollars have been invested and many companies have reaped the benefits of early adoption.

     But it’s worth noting that the most successful businesses have laid the foundation for entire industries.

     When building a house, the foundation is the first and most important factor. Without it, the house will collapse, and all good builders know that the foundation must be correct before building the top.

     Bitcoin is entering the era of utility.

Next steps

     With the foundation laid, it’s time to start building practical solutions to real-world problems.

     People want to put all kinds of things on the blockchain, from gold to furniture receipts. If it exists and someone is bidding on it, then it should be on the blockchain. But the blockchain is not a magic bullet that can solve all problems.

     At its core, a blockchain is a database. It may be the Liam Neeson of databases, but it’s still a database.

     The new era of practicality must come with companies being able to solve real problems that may not have been solved before Satoshi left us his gift.

     As an industry, we must be able to investigate every industry and every activity to see what challenges an immutable distributed ledger can solve.

     We’ve been discussing this on Reddit and other forums. The new era of business is about not only knowing what can be built, but also what should be built.

     We must accept people from all walks of life and listen to their ideas. We need to innovate with the creative minds of the people through cross-disciplinary connections.

Good Examples

     There are already a handful of companies ready for the future.

     Companies like Blockcypher have become the Amazon Web Services of blockchain technology. They started with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin, and because of early versatility, now make it easy to create private blockchain solutions using their full suite of tools.

     Companies like Coinbase and BitGo have become “Bitcoin’s first national bank” and are expanding to become global Bitcoin and Forex banks. They provide a foundation for developers to build all kinds of transaction-intensive applications.

     Among other things, Zapchain has taken advantage of the simple application programming interface provided by Coinbase to reimagine all aspects of society.

     Chain and its recently acquired Blockstack.io are working on private blockchains and the tools to interact with them. R3 is well positioned to gain traction with the world’s largest banks, laying the foundation for meaningful enterprise participation.

     Michael J Casey of the MIT Media Lab is helping to lead us into this era, by encouraging MIT Sloan and MIT School of Engineering to work collaboratively on blockchain technology, bringing together two world-class schools at one world-class institution.

     These activities will begin to create the walls of the house. They can help uncover new problems that we can then solve with this technology.

     At Fluent, we have identified a very specific problem through talking to industry leaders and professionals about their supply chain issues. Equipped with our knowledge of blockchain technology, we were able to create a solution to solve this problem, but it would not be possible without this core technology.

     The beginning of a new year will be filled with optimism and joy, but when distractions are cleared, we need to move on, focus on solving practical problems , and develop practical times .