The blockchain technology was invented, by an anonymous group of people known by the name of ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, for digital currency, the famous Bitcoin that took the financial world by storm. Later on, it found its way to other technology uses by distributing the information and not just copying it, therefore leading the way for new emerging secure Internet models. After the Oil that became the ‘Black Gold’ now we have a new contender for the Gold title, “Digital Gold”.
Now if we ask the question to better understand the Blockchain Technology, the better answer comes from ‘Blockchain Revolution’ by Don & Alex Tapscott.
“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.”
This technology is finding its way in many application, now the United Nations is examining the possibility to see its benefits in the developing countries. This announcement was made at the 73rd edition of the UN General Assembly in New York, under the UNDP program to improve the conditions of these nations. In a statement from Haoliang Xu, the Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations he expressed the importance of the blockchain technology.
“We believe that blockchain is a technology that can have a huge impact in the developing world in numerous ways,”
The technology is finding its way in different industries, one of new users is giant retailer Walmart, that after the lettuce bacterial infection that hurt their reputation, they now want their customers, to ease their minds, to have the ability to scan, via an app, a bag of vegetables and trace its complete journey from source to their supermarket. This was possible with blockchain system developed with the help of IBM and their asking their suppliers to go to full implementation by the end of 2019.
Another adoption came from Europe, where Albert Heijn, the largest Dutch supermarket chain, is creating its own version of blockchain to trace orange juice. Again they want their customers before drinking a cup of orange juice, to follow the journey of the orange from where it was picked up from a tree, squeezed, bottled and sent to the supermarket. Now that’s a long journey for a cup of Orange Juice.
We all debate where the blockchain technology has yet to achieve and where it is heading in the future, but something we know for sure, it is an energy hungry beast.
The downside of this blockchain is its reliance on a technology that consume a lot of electricity for their mining farms. It already shacked the GPU market and sent sky high the cost of these gaming cards.
Now a Canadian city, Medicine Hat situated in southeast Alberta, that hosts one of the biggest Bitcoin farm in the world, Hut 8, a $100 million operation, is threatening them to cut their electricity feed because they consume 10 times energy consumption from any other industry in the area and the summer with the high heat the city could not cope with their demand.
Nobody is doubting where this technology might lead but greed could give us a hint that it will be hard to control its energy hunger. But, on the positive side, there is an argument that Blockchain heavy energy consumption will stimulate to shift toward renewable energy and create innovation to this field.
For the sake of climate change and Global Warming, let’s hope so!
