Blockchain and Tokens

I’ll admit that I’m still trying to really understand blockchain and tokens. I can see elements of potential, but I think everyone would agree that we’re still very early in the development of blockchain and tokens. I’ll avoid comparison to the early internet days, but no doubt there’s a lot to be learned from those comparisons.

A VC blogger I read who invests in the blockchain space shared this really great presentation on cryptotokens and a look at the various players in a blockchain community. If you’re trying to understand blockchain and tokens in particular, read the following presentation in full screen mode and you’ll have a better understanding of it.

No doubt this cryptotoken presentation was skewed towards how regulators should approach regulating the space. However, it helped me understand some of the ways tokens are used in blockchain. Do I understand it fully? Not yet, but this is getting me closer.

What’s not clear to me is how much we will really need to know to benefit from blockchain. It seems to me like the answer is not much. When I use Amazon I don’t need to know what database they use or what programming language their website uses. The same is true for a laptop. I don’t really need to know the details of how an Intel processor works, but I do like to see the Intel Inside sticker on the outside and some of the specs.

I have a feeling blockchain will evolve to be something similar. A few very technical people will need to know more about the details and they’ll build the infrastructure. However, most people will just use a service and not know any of the technical details. However, if blockchain is successful, then people will want to choose a service that’s built on blockchain because of some of the characteristics that make it better than one centralized system. We’re certainly not there yet in healthcare.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

1 Comment

  • John,

    Great post as it addresses one of the core issues often found in early stage disruptive forces. People (other than those directly involved in development and deployment) do not need to understand blockchain to benefit from it. When I discuss the technology with someone who is unfamiliar with it I find they want to understand it even though they don’t need to. I wonder if when the Pony Express was replaced by a telegraph wire folks wanted to know how that worked. At some point people stop worrying about how something works and just take it for granted. I imagine with blockchain we are a few years away from that. There are still people who say there is no value in blockchain but there are many instances of knowledgeable experts saying that personal computers and then the internet were just flashes in a pan. Time will tell how large an impact blockchain will be but based on my experience I’m a believer.

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