USA — A lot of early inventions that we use and count on everyday were ridiculed when they were first invented and exposed to a jittery public.
The shock of the new creates jealousy, distrust, and resistance. Edison’s light bulb was considered a sham. In 1878, the Brits declared that the light bulbmight be”good enough for our Transatlantic friends… but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.”
Coffee was thought to induce drunkenness and coffeehouses were considered the gathering place of reactionaries (maybe that part is true as caffeine was probably very useful when storming the palace).
In the early 1750s, peoplehurled trash and insults at the first man who used an umbrella in the streets.
And so it goes throughout human history until we come to today and the resistance and lack of acceptance of the greater global promise of Blockchain. The recent, unfortunate escapades of certain cryptocurrency companies have tainted the digital finance category, but we need to be careful lest we become crippled by “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” syndrome.
When we look to verifying a new “thing”, it’s best to listen to the most respected legacy authorities, and here, no less than IBM and Harvard Business Review have chimed in:
“By greatly reducing paperwork and errors, blockchain significantly reduces overhead and transaction costs, and reduces or eliminates the need for third parties or middlemen to verify transactions.” — IBM
“…we can imagine a world in which contracts…are protected from deletion, tampering, and revision. Intermediaries like lawyers, brokers, and bankers might no longer be necessary. Individuals, organizations, machines, and algorithms would freely transact and interact with one another with little friction. This is the immense potential of blockchain.” HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Admittingly, crypto burst upon the scene with as much fanfare as the early dot coms and the hula hoop, and the Super Bowl was the event that created the excitement via the two million dollar a minute use of Matt Damon and Larry David. That happens. It happened to Pets.com in the late 90’s. But as that went belly up due to overspend and under analysis, Chewy emerged and it works.
And so it goes with Blockchain.
Currently, Blockchain seeks to repair a broken system of cross border payments. It delivers on the increasing need to send digital payments to mobile wallets all over the world. With the current system, it’s expensive, it takes too long and there are too many middlemen during the process who have their hands out and are extracting fees.
Blockchain exists because we do not have a system of efficient cross-border payments with an efficient domestic payments infrastructure. The legacy system creates friction in moving funds between financial institutions.Blockchain is informing FedNow to do exactly this because it’s been in development for the past ten years by some of the best minds on the planet.
This is not a technology you want to dismiss, any more than you want to ridicule an umbrella on a rainy day.
Blockchain is also reducing risk and fraud for cross-border payments and has in place an audit system – the AICPA Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 – to confirm that information security practices, policies, procedures and operations meet the highest standard of security and compliance.Certain providers like Almond FinTech have also put into place additional security protocols to reduce or eliminate fraud.
These are part of Blockchain’s responsible security protocol measures that might one day exceed the best of what the Fed can cobble together.
Society has suffered an awful lot of misbehavior by legacy banks and investment houses that completely eclipse anything that FTX, Binance and others have done by an X factor in the billions (can you say derivatives?) And yet, we are still expected to trust them. Why?
Blockchain is a system that was made possible and necessary by the scandals perpetuated on the population by the legacy institutions. It’s time to understand and accept hat Blockchain is a vital technology that needs adoption so it can be more commonly implemented, and its promise more fully born.
So turn on the lights, drink some coffee, open your umbrella and get onboard the Blockchain. There’s future in payments to be made.
Howard Davidson is the CMO at AlmondFinTech.
Almond FinTech is a blockchain-based funds transfer network connecting financial institutions globally. Almond’s infrastructure is built for speed, security, and accessibility, enabling users worldwide to send money across borders using their existing financial institutions. Additionally, Almond uses a combination of psychometric and financial data to provide fast, low-risk, ethical loans to communities with unconventional or limited credit histories.
Media details:
Website: https://almondfintech.com
Contact: money@almondfintech.com
Press Release Distributed by The Express Wire
To view the original version on The Express Wire visit The global promise of Blockchain must not be derailed
