Two Futures for Blockchain Technology

The best case scenario is that blockchain gives us creative ways to sell spare data storage. The worst case is those potential liberations are taken from us.

Blockchain won’t automatically improve the world if it’s widely adopted.

Blockchain offers new ways to connect our world. We could automate everything from rental agreements to monitoring wildfires. Blockchain’s ability to connect to non-traditional devices, like utility poles or home dishwashers, offers creative ways to build side income from extra data storage.

That’s a dream if we’re the ones who own the extra data. But what’s stopping a dishwasher manufacturer from claiming ownership of that extra space or just taking a cut? We’re not entering the blockchain era from scratch. There’s an existing world of dense user agreements and data ownership challenges that we haven’t solved yet.

How we deal with those loose ends will determine how much we can empower ourselves through blockchain technology. Stephen Williams, author of Blockchain: The Next Everything, takes the optimistic view, but there are policy questions we must answer today to make the dream scenario a reality.