The future of blockchain and Web3.0 | Information age

[L to R]: Blockchain Fundamentals author Mohammed Khaiata, ACS president Nick Tate and ACS Queensland branch manager Holly Bretherton. Photo: Delivered

“Blockchain has been touted as the foundation of a new internet, but businesses and individuals should be realistic about the technology’s possibilities,” said Mohammed Khaiata, CEO, Blockchain of Australia, Chair of the ACS Blockchain Committee and author of ACS’s latest report, Blockchain Basics.

The new report is designed to provide real information in non-technical terms to policy and business decision makers in Australia.

“Blockchain has huge potential in many industries, but people need to be better educated about what it is, how it works and what it’s capable of before we can have a national discussion,” Khaiata said.

Blockchain Basics lays the foundation for this discourse.

The report goes through the basics of blockchain – how it works and why it works that way – before covering the real-world applications for Blockchain (including but not limited to digital assets and cryptocurrency) as well as the shortcomings and ongoing issues with the technology.

“Almost every industry and organization could theoretically use blockchain in some way—for supply chains, for certification, for provenance and ownership, for new classes of digital assets, and for sovereign identity—but not all organizations have the maturity or need to use it,” noted Khaiata.

The report also delves into Web3.0, the idea of ​​an internet built on peer-to-peer technology and validation rather than on server farms run by Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

According to ACS chief Dr Nick Tate, the aim of the guidance is to help decision-makers – politics and business – make informed decisions about the technology based on fundamentals, not hype or headlines.

“Few technologies have made the headlines, good and bad, that blockchain has in recent years,” noted Dr Tate.

“It’s a fundamental debate about trust,” he said.

“Who can we trust in the internet age? Is it Google and Facebook and Amazon? Are there governments? Or is it technology?

“And there’s incredible potential there, but we have to be careful. It’s a complex, multifaceted discussion that we as individuals and collectively as a nation have to have.

“We have important decisions to be made regarding regulation. We have to ask whether the technology is actually good enough.

“And we need to look at whether taking people out of the loop fundamentally robs the process of humanity and human decision-making — and whether that can be a good thing or a bad thing.”

The Blockchain Basics the report can be downloaded from here.