The explosion of popularity of the term “blockchain” is unlike any other technology I can remember. Even though there were many technology related fads in the past that were quickly hyped up by the mainstream media such as 3d televisions or VR, no other technology ever rose to such a prominence as blockchain. This has led to a curious development: even though most of the people do not really know what blockchain is about, let alone explain how it works, it is the talk of the town.
Nothing exemplifies the rapid rise of the term “blockchain” into mainstream culture more than the Google Trends graph of the number of times people searched the word “blockchain” in the last five years.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=Blockchain
What is clearly visible is that the searches took off very recently around 2016. An even more interesting fact, however, is that searches for the term “blockchain” correlate positively with the price of Bitcoin.
https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/price/
This is, in my mind, the symptom of one of the biggest misunderstandings about blockchain: namely that “blockchain = Bitcoin” or put differently, that the main field of application for the blockchain technology lies in the creation of crypto currencies, that could one day replace traditional fiat currencies. What is true is that Bitcoin and other popular crypto currencies such as Ethereum are based on and enabled by the blockchain technology. And thus, it is no surprise that with the meteoritic price rise that Bitcoin has experienced up to very recently, that there is an simultaneous increase in interest into the underlying blockchain technology. The misunderstanding, now, arises from the fact the rise in popularity of Blockchain and Bitcoin is not equaled by a rise in understanding of the technology. This sketch from a popular US talk show perfectly mocks this situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeMv9uKpAZg
What is important to understand about the blockchain technology is that it is a way to create trust between online parties that does not need a third-party verification. With this trust, different products and services can be created, from currencies to legal contracts. Thus, Bitcoin is only one of the many possible product that can be offered in an internet where trust exists between different people and therefore not at all the same thing as blockchain.
This blog post is based on the following articles:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/7/17091766/blockchain-bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-meaning
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/misconceptions-about-blockchain-8553262e8ff0
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-misunderstood-about-Bitcoin
