Frikkie's Blockchain World

Overview

The purpose of this article is try and show how blockchain technology will impact our lives. It also outlines a framework that shows Interledger as being the common thread that links all the different blockchain ledgers, with Ripple's XRP being the common cryptocurrency used to transfer value from one domain/ledger/country to another.

Frikkie's World

The year is 2019.

Frikkie lives in Cape Town. He owns a small computer repair shop and provides IT support to the local businesses in the area.

Frikkie is a gamer; he loves playing Spells of Genesis, and recently won a big battle where he was handsomely rewarded in BitCrystals. His BitCrystals wallet is looking really healthy!

Frikkie also joined a Trusted Lending Circle (stokvel), which is based on the WeTrust blockchain. The time for Frikkie's pay-out is getting closer and he is already thinking how he is going to spend his TrustCoins! Maybe he will take Fatima to Sun City for a weekend!

Frikkie contracted a guy in Poland with an Ethereum Smart Contract to do Linux support. Frikkie can see on the blockchain that the work is complete, so he releases the Ether payment.

Frikkie's airtime is finished. Fortunately he has Lumens in his Stellar account. Since he got the Bitwala debit card, he uses his Stellar account as his primary means of payment for everyday expenses. He quickly buys the airtime from the debit card app on his mobile phone.

Frikkie joins a new web site for IT professionals. He does not use his Facebook or Google credentials to sign up. Since he got his Civic ID, he uses it for everything, and he knows that his online identity is safe, since he has control of it. He also heard that the City of Cape Town will use Civic as a primary means of identification and voting in the upcoming local elections. How cool is that?! He wouldn't even have to go and queue, he will just vote from his mobile phone.

At Frikkie's shop, he has a computer running 24 hours a day, which he made part of the Golem supercomputer. He checks his Golem account and sees that he was handsomely rewarded with 150 Golem for the work the computer did in the last 24 hours. Sweet!

One of the services that Frikkie provides to his clients is cloud storage, sort of like Dropbox, only it is much cheaper and more secure. Frikkie uses Sia. He checks the Sia price. Yes, the coin is getting stronger against the USD! When his clients pay in a couple of days he will show a good exchange gain!

Frikkie needs to pay a supplier in China. He opens his Ripple wallet, and makes the payment. A few seconds later he gets confirmation from the supplier that the payment was received. Since Ripple's XRP became the standard for global exchange of funds and tokens between blockchains through Interledger, Frikkie's life has become so much easier!

Frikkie also has a Bitcoin wallet, which he uses as a saving account.

Before blockchain, Frikkie stored all his money in his bank account.

With blockchain, Frikkie has accounts in various ecosystems and spends the relevant tokens in that environment. If he wants to move tokens between different blockchains, he can do so using the XRP coin from Ripple, over Interledger's platform.

The Interledger protocol does for value what the TCP/IP protocol did for information.

Frikkie's blockchain world is summarized in the graphic below. This is a snapshot of the Internet of Value. There are hundreds (probably thousands in the future) of different blockchain applications being developed in the market. This is just a sample.

The Internet of Value

Like the regular Internet, the Internet of Value (IoV) will have a massive impact on the way we live our lives.

Before the Internet, we used to send information by post. We wrote a letter on paper, put it in an envelope, wrote the address on the envelope, affixed a stamp, drove to the post office, and put the letter in the mail box. We then waited three weeks for a reply.

With email, that same process is completed in a matter of seconds.

If you compare "Value" and everything represented by it with how our world has changed in terms of everything which we call "Information", you get a sense of the potential impact of blockchain on our world.

Blockchain (IoV) will do for value what the Internet did for information.

For instance, international transfers currently take around 5 days to complete across the SWIFT network. Ripple recently demonstrated a transfer from Canada to Germany that took 20 seconds.

In summary

We are on the brink of a new revolution. We are entering the Value Age. The next 10 years will usher in an era of more personal autonomy and choice. The blockchain will touch and change the nature of all societies around the globe.

Educate yourself and become part of the revolution!