Insane in the Blockchain

A lot of people understand the Blockchain to be a way to transfer currency quickly and cheaply, however, there is a lot more to this than some Youtuber becoming a multimillionaire by investing in cryptocurrency!

If you would like financial advice, then this might not be the right blog for you… But hopefully, we can help you gain further insight of the Blockchain and how this could change the creative industries in the not so distant future.

We’ve been looking at some real-life scenarios of how this hyper-evolving technology could deliver a faster, stronger and safer collaborative environment. Our resident UI/UX Designer and all-round Blockchain Geek, Jack Hobbs, is going to answer the question that’s on everyone’s lips… What the heck is this blockchain thing all about?!

If you haven’t already had your co-worker attempt to tell you what Blockchain is (wink wink, nudge nudge Ben), I’m going try to break it down into its simplest form.

As an example, let’s look at two individuals who want to swap something. For it to be successful, there needs to be a shared understanding and agreement about the exchange of goods. But what if one person was dishonest and tried to lie about the swap? What if they tried to claim that they never received the item from the other person?

Now, imagine the same situation above but with ten other people in the room, each one as a witness to the trade. Their presence makes it incredibly difficult for one of the parties involved to be dishonest about the exchange.

That is the basis of a blockchain transaction.

With all parties present, each has their own record of the swap. This creates a decentralised (you’ll hear this word alot with Blockchain) ledger of transactions which everyone maintains.

As no single entity is responsible for the storage of data or record of transactions, it makes Blockchain technology one of the most secure ways to transfer and manage data. This makes it incredibly hard for it to be tampered with and because of this, startups are rushing to launch their product utilising Blockchain tech.

Jonathan is going to introduce you to a few of these examples.

You could say that Steemit is just another blogging platform and I guess you’d be right. However, as a decentralised platform, there are a few features that set it apart from the pack and have the potential to disrupt how we interact with online content in the future.

Steemit is set up in a way that puts community curation at its core. In its simplest form, Steemit operates on a voting system. Users have the power to highlight interesting content, giving the article greater exposure and the potential to earn Steem, the cryptocurrency behind the platform. Yet the potential to earn isn’t just reserved for writers as simply finding a hidden gem of an article or chucking your two pence in to a comment can throw you into the reward pool.

This isn’t really about money, it seems to me that Steemit is trying to answer a very real problem that all social media sites are currently facing; how to improve the quality of content. Steemit is handing that responsibility over to its users, in the hope that interesting ideas and a supportive community will prevail over clickbait articles with shocking cover photos.

There’s real potential to apply Steemit features to other areas of the creative industries. A similar voting system could be used on projects with multiple stakeholders to approve design iterations remotely. Non-profits could use the platform as a marketing tool or revenue stream without the worries of third-party influence or paid ads.

It’s early days for Steemit but I’m excited to see if their approach to online content can affect the wider social media space.

VR is arguably one of the hottest properties at the moment within the tech sector. Everyone wants a slice of life that doesn’t exist, or one that only exists inside of a screen (A generation of people glued to smartphones anyone?).

I’ll be honest, this was a crazy concept to get my head round, buying virtual land that only exists inside the confines of a VR headset. Yet the Decentraland project is bullish in its approach to merging two fresh faced technologies, VR and blockchain.

Despite being in the early stages of VR, Decentraland is promoting a utopian world for its users based on the fundamentals of blockchain technology. Users have full control of their virtual land, content and any revenue generated using the platform as well as an “unforgeable” (their words, not mine!) record of ownership, thanks to the Ethereum blockchain.

In a similar vein to the Steemit project, it seems Decentraland is trying to set the standard for a user focused platform, free from any outside influence or agenda. This can only be a positive as it will give creators a limitless space to where they’re free to produce whatever bonkers concept comes to mind.

We’re still in the early adoption stages of VR, and we haven’t quite reached a quality where experiences are seamless (For this, we need an 8K signal sent to each eye). Despite this, Decentraland are using Blockchain to bring an interesting and new approach to VR.

The Internet of Things isn’t a new concept. The dream of a home stuffed full with technology, that’s constantly communicating, has been a desire for decades. The idea is that devices across your home can all work and interact together seamlessly, thus bring more automation to your home and improving your quality of life. All of this points to an idea of modern day living that is reflective of our ever-developing habits of laziness.

With it’s recent partnerships with the likes of Volkswagen and BOSCH, IOTA is paving the way for a robust, secure and scalable backbone for a future where toasters can talk to your teapot. IOTA is focused on making the transmission of data free and secure, allowing for quick and seamless conversations between your connected devices.

As someone who hasn’t quite fully adopted the world of interconnected tech, IOTA’s advancements in this field is pretty exciting. I don’t think a home of talking tech is quite accessible to everyone just yet, but when the prices of an IoT capable light bulb drops below 30 quid I’ll be sure to get involved!

Kodak, that household brand we all grew to love… #KODAKMoment. Now there is a massive buzz around #KODAKCoin! But let’s forget about the coin and concentrate on the technology in hand.

Kodak has developed an encrypted image rights management platform called KODAKOne, that utilises the blockchain and allows the rights of photographs to  participating photographers to be paid for the licence use of their image, in all, allowing greater security for the photographers back catalogue and future works.

For me this is a massive step in the right direction, everyone has Googled for an image and let’s face it at some point in our careers we have slapped a piano playing cat in a presentation. This solution makes sure that cat/owner/photographer is receiving what it’s owed…

That’s good, right? I believe so! It adds traceability, and as new designers, photographers and filmmakers adopt this, or a similar technology it may clear up all the misinterpreted image rights we ponder over. This solution is still going through the motions and not yet available, but keep an eye out for it as it’s one to watch out for in the not so distant future.

Here’s a theory about how all these technologies could be utilised in unison. A 3D designer starts building a VR experience to share on Decentraland. Once built, user data will be shared between devices using microtransactions on an IOTA network. Progress and development can be shared throughout the build on Steemit, with the potential to add revenue to the project throughout development. Steemit can be further utilised to share marketing material around the launch of the experience. The intellectual property of the creator can be protected throughout the project by investing in KodakCoin.

This is only the start of a digital environment dominated by Blockchain. With all these big companies getting involved, who will be next to add their link to the Blockchain? Technology is evolving at a blistering pace, quicker than it has ever before which naturally creates a domain dictated by FOMO (Does anyone get this reference?).

If you’d like to discuss anything around the creative opportunities with Blockchain then feel free to get in touch and we can look to arrange a chat.