Richard Branson, long time supporter of Bitcoin and the multibillionaire founder of Virgin Group, recently acknowledged the importance of the Blockchain technology in today’s global economic revolution.
At the Virgin Disruptors event in London, Branson further emphasized the impact of the Blockchain technology in data and identity management, citing land and property issues in countries like Egypt.
Branson stated:
“If you take somewhere like Egypt, 90 percent of people have got houses, they've got a garden, but they've got no piece of paper to show ownership of that ... And without ownership of your property, it's almost impossible to start a business or get a bank loan or anything.”
If implemented with proper cryptography and security measures, the Blockchain technology, which is currently studied by the world’s largest banks, financial institutions, and corporations, can be leveraged to create an immutable ecosystem for data management and sharing.
Branson noted the joint project of leading Blockchain company and mining group BitFury and Republic of Georgia's National Agency of Public Registry, which embeds the data of the country’s real estate properties and rights into an unalterable ledger.
Importance of Immutability
Throughout Branson’s discussion of storing unalterable data, he explicitly explained the Blockchain technology’s capability of storing data in independent blocks with unprecedented security measures.
This of course, is only relevant if the Blockchain is decentralized and secured by an open network of miners contributing their computing power to verify and authenticate transactions.
Thus, Branson’s entire presentation on Blockchain’s potential in revolutionizing various industries including the finance and real estate markets, solely applies to projects and distributed systems incorporating a decentralized infrastructure.
The majority of Blockchain-based banking systems and financial applications being developed by banks and large tech corporations like IBM utilize a private and centralized network, which are federated and overseen by the network operators.
Most, if not all banks have publicized their intentions to eliminate immutability and devote their manpower in the creation of private ledgers and Blockchain-based systems.
Although Branson’s comment on the Blockchain technology is bullish, it is not quite optimistic if the trends of today’s Blockchain sector and industry are considered
A clear majority of the industry are opting for the integration of centralized Blockchain platforms that are prone to changes and alterations in data.