Blockchain Gains a Life of Its Own Beyond Bitcoin

[Note: This article was originally published in Portuguese on SXSW Meio & Mensagem on March 15th, 2019.]

Blockchain is directly associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, this technology is not limited to that.

This year, SXSW had a specific track on the topic: ‘Blockchain & Cryptocurrency’. The goal was to explore ideas and policies that will affect global industries. During the event, it became clear that exchanging digital currencies is just one of the functionalities of this still little-explored technology.

If before Blockchain was known only for Bitcoin, now it already has a ‘life of its own’ and is seen as a tool with incredible potential to transform markets and business models as we know them today. This technology establishes itself as an important tool to reduce operational costs, bring more speed, transparent transactions, security, and greater efficiency to a series of processes related to financial transactions and internal and external control from companies and consumers.

One area that has not yet shown major advances is the existence of open and permissionless blockchains for most cases beyond those related to currencies. It is natural that the initial investment in this area seeks to use the technology as a competitive differentiator in relation to competitors. However, major advances will happen when competitors start acting together to deliver open and permissionless solutions, thus allowing the rapid evolution of all businesses.