Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a catch-all word for the technology that enables cryptography to function.

How much does trust cost? We rarely consider how much we pay for trust, yet we definitely place a premium on it. Typically, this value is shown when trust is violated or lost. That is precisely what occurred in 2008, when we discovered that the people in charge of the world's financial health were asleep at the wheel. We recognised that we were paying godly quantities of money to mere mortals for supplying trust. That is why cryptocurrency is such a significant deal. We can now construct machines to deliver trust as a service for the first time in human history. We no longer have to rely on flawed humans, which increases the accessibility of trust.

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a catch-all word for the technology that enables cryptography to function. It's a sophisticated system of incentives and penalties that incentivises millions of anonymous computers worldwide to be trustworthy. This is why Bitcoin is not backed by an individual or a corporation. And, certainly, this is a difficult concept to grasp, but so is our current financial system. Unlike the financial system, however, DLT is significantly more transparent, which makes fraud much easier to detect.

So what happens when the cost of trust is reduced? The first beneficiaries are the value creators and producers. They now suffer fewer losses as a result of layers of predatory middlemen. This is already evident in the remittance industry, where bitcoin can be used to move hard-earned money across borders at a significantly lower cost and with more security. As a result, hardworking men and women worldwide lose less of their hard-earned money to intermediaries such as Western Union.

NFTs are another excellent illustration of what happens when the cost of trust is reduced. At its core, DLT permits unambiguous ownership of digital assets such as NFTs without the use of an intermediary. Without the assistance of a trusted intermediary such as a record company, lawyer, or auction house, artists and other creatives can directly transfer ownership of their work to customers. In the case of NFTs, the traditional middlemen who verify ownership and facilitate the legal transfer of an asset are replaced by a trusted distributed ledger technology (DLT) system, such as Ethereum. As a result, creators of digital assets such as digital art, music, or video retain a greater portion of the sale earnings and can promote their work to anybody with an internet connection.

When the middleman is removed and creators are given greater value, wonderful things happen. Individuals are more motivated to create than to act as middlemen. Throughout my career, I recall numerous engineers desiring to go to finance due to the significantly greater compensation. The remuneration for finance, on the other hand, is high simply because most financial professionals operate as middlemen in the transfer of assets. If we eliminate these middlemen using DLT, a greater portion of the value can go to engineers and scientists who work on tough challenges that will improve everyone's lives. This means that we may create systems that reward individuals for decreasing carbon emissions or contributing to our evolution into a multi-planetary species; systems that reward creators, not intermediaries.

Throughout history, we have made numerous sacrifices in the name of trust; confidence in government, money, and religious organisations. And in the majority of cases, we've paid a tremendous price for it. Human humans are fundamentally wired to trust; it is ingrained in our nature. We should not be forced to pay such a high price. I'm looking forwards to all the beautiful things we'll be able to build now that trust at scale is so much more accessible.

Support us!