Blockchain technology is predominantly associated with crypto. As a distributed ledger system, it is designed to ensure transactions are properly recorded and that there is solid, truthful evidence of money, assets or other property transferring from one party to the next.
What Is the Power of Blockchain?
What not a lot of people realize, however, is that blockchain has a lot of other uses that don’t necessarily apply to finance. Perhaps the big stickler is that blockchain can potentially serve supply chains and ensure that all items being shipped from one point to the next are valid and real. Through blockchain, one can monitor an item from the early days of its creation to its final point of sale.
For Amber Baldet, a board member of the Zcash Foundation, blockchain can assist in boosting trust. One of the big problems with the financial space is that when a transaction occurs through traditional payment systems, third parties are required to ensure the transactions go through. During this time, money can potentially be stolen, or the financial platform can be infiltrated by malicious actors.
With blockchains like Zcash, middlemen are removed from the process, but the system is not entirely private. As with bitcoin, Zcash operates in a way that allows people to retain control of their data and keep themselves marginally hidden, but in the end, every transaction is technically visible granted enough information is left behind for viewers to see.
While this may sound like a serious privacy issue, Baldet seems to suggest that an entire history of transactions being visible ultimately creates a system where everyone is equal. The proof available for each transaction ensures that trust remains constant, as customers can rest assured their information will never be compromised, go missing or be wiped clean.
Moving Towards a Decentralized Future
In a recent interview, Baldet discusses Zcash and its present blockchain structure. She says:
[Zcash really is] keeping on this idea of a technically pure privacy solution to digital cash as their north star. There are certainly people who can flame each other on Twitter about whether that goal is being achieved. Most of the transactions in the Zcash network are just as public as bitcoin ones. For people who don’t participate or play with bitcoin, they might not realize that it’s not as private as maybe the news has made it out to be. It’s pseudonymous, so as long as you keep some information private, it’s hard to trace back to you.
At press time, Baldet is working on a new app project with a company called Clovyr. The app is designed to assist companies with infrastructure coordination and assist laborers in obtaining data from several access points. She’s also confident that in the coming future, all applications will be decentralized.
