An industry that created a coin

A couple of months after the publication of his impressive paper, in early 2009, the person behind the pseudonym Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin blockchain and bitcoins began to circulate. From that moment, many of its believers started working with their cryptocurrency and blockchain, and since then, the fever has not stopped. Thanks to their faith, there are now several thousand cryptocurrencies: from absolutely nothing to more than $60,000 each bitcoin was worth in 2021.

But beyond cryptocurrencies and their volatile prices, the most interesting thing about different blockchains lies in the other applications that have sprung up around them and their potential to promote the concept of zero trust beyond payments. Like all of these, we are talking about a nascent crypto industry consisting of professionals trying to monetize and universalize the advantages of blockchains, but also an investment bubble and some who want to take advantage of only the most reckless users. Pyramid scams, silly theories and design flaws in some cryptocurrencies have meant that the crypto industry is sometimes better known for its scandals than its potential.

However, the ability of blockchains to execute tasks automatically and incorruptibly in the presence of verified information has given birth to a key application of blockchain: smart contracts. These are computer programs that execute certain commands when certain conditions are met, and they do so automatically and without supervision. For example, two people can sign a smart contract that stipulates that every day the average temperature in their city is below 10°C they must pay 10 euros. In such a situation, crypto wallets and weather information systems should be linked to the blockchain.