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lockchain is the technology defined in 2009 to create the virtual currency bitcoin by someone who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto —the nick of a mysterious legendary figure in the cryptocurrency community—. In 2008, Nakamoto published an article, "Bitcoin: A Peer to-Peer Electronic Cash System", in which he described a system called peer-to-peer (P2P) digital money. In 2009, he deployed the Bitcoin software, with which he created the network of the same name and on January 3, 2009, he carried out the initial launch of the first units of the cryptocurrency, called bitcoins, with the symbols ₿ and BTC. Bitcoin is the implementation of a concept conceived in 1998 by cryptographer Wei Dai, who published on the Cypherpunk email list a system for exchanging value and executing contracts based on an untraceable electronic currency. He called this currency b-money. In October 2015, Satoshi Nakamoto received The Economist's Innovation Award in its special "No Boundaries" category for his invention, "which could radically alter the international financial system [...] It would eliminate the need for trusted third parties such as central banks in the transmission of money, could reduce the cost of credit cards and other transaction fees, and appeal to privacy advocates." Nakamoto shared the list of award winners with some of the technology companies of the moment: Tesla Motors, Alibaba Group, Spotify, Uber, Dropbox, and Box. UCLA professor Bhagwan Chowdhry decided to nominate the creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The proposal for the 2016 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences nomination for Satoshi Nakamoto was rejected by the press office of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences because it is not awarded if the laureate is "anonymous or deceased."
BLOCKCHAIN FUNCTIONALITY
The basis of the success that Bitcoin, and more recently Ethereum and many other cryptocurrencies, have achieved lies in the technology that supports it, so multiple applications for Blockchain are emerging that go beyond virtual currencies. This effect has been increased after the incorporation into Blockchain technology of a new functionality known as a smart contract, which allows not only to record a transaction in the ledger but also a contract or a set of transactions that can be executed in the future if a series of conditions stipulated in the contract itself are met. The field of new applications is so broad that it covers all types of sectors. Hence, the Blockchain phenomenon is referred to as the "industrial revolution of the internet." "Blockchain will do for transactions what the internet did for information," states MIT Technology Review, which attributes to this technology "the second digital revolution" and the potential to change the future of commerce. In Harvard Business Review, they call it a "silent revolution."
In the same way that the internet forever changed the business models of centuries-old industries and companies, Blockchain or "block chain" has been giving rise, since its appearance in 2009, to a new economic pattern based on the decentralization of trust, in which we can all exchange goods and services without the need for third parties. This implies an unparalleled advance that will revolutionize the way we organize our digital life. In fact, it is not in vain that it is said that we have moved from the internet of information to the internet of value. Blockchain is a revolutionary advance with the capacity to transform the way everyone interacts and carries out any type of operation. Sectors such as finance, legal, energy, health, industry, commerce, or intellectual property can be profoundly altered. Blockchain is already considered by many experts to be the next great technological disruption of the second decade of the 21st century.
NEW ERA OF THE INTERNET
The internet is entering a second era, that of the internet of value; the first was a convergence between computational and communication technologies. This second era is fueled by a combination of cryptography, mathematics, software engineering, and behavioral economics. Blockchain is the flagship disruptive technology of the second internet era, and the basis of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Until now, we had always needed a third party that both parties trusted to guarantee the authenticity of transactions, whether it was a bank, an auditor, a notary, or PayPal, for example, that had a record or a seal of veracity. Blockchain solves this problem by combining peer-to-peer (P2P) technology with cryptography and, thus, creating a new form of digital communication and exchange. Blockchain means the end of data centralization. It is a technology that allows the transfer of digital data with very sophisticated encoding and in a completely irrefutable and secure manner, over a distributed scheme that displaces traditional intermediaries and suppresses centralized control. It would be like a company's accounting ledger where all entries and exits are recorded; in this case, we are talking about a ledger of digital events.
Blockchain technology is based on four fundamentals: the shared ledger of transactions, consensus to verify transactions, a contract that determines the operating rules of transactions, and finally, cryptography, which is the foundation of everything. But not all Blockchains are created equal. Some are public—often described as permissionless—where anyone can access and store data on a blockchain anonymously. Other Blockchains facilitate online transactions between authorized Blockchains, also called private Blockchains, where participants are known and need permission to access, read, or add information to the Blockchain.
VIRTUAL CURRENCIES AND ICO
Crypto assets are the name given to the set of cryptocurrencies and other forms of goods and services that use cryptography—and by extension Blockchain technology—to function. The most popular are cryptocurrencies, but there are others such as smart contracts, tokens, or governance systems that fall into this category. There are more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies with a very volatile capitalization that is currently half a trillion dollars. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple alone account for more than 50% of the market capitalization. The 19 largest fortunes in cryptocurrencies accumulate 26.4 billion dollars, according to Forbes' Crypto Rich list. There is an echo of Friedrich von Hayek in every cryptocurrency. His criticism of the State's monopoly on banknote issuance is materialized in cryptocurrencies, which return to private users the power to issue their own currency. How? Through "mining." The thought of the Austrian School of Economics resonates in the lines of code of every cryptocurrency. There is an idea much older than Hayek and which is a common link among all subcurrents of liberalism. This link, more than an idea, has become a value of this political philosophy: the free market, which underlies as the foundation of cryptocurrencies.
What are ICOs? An Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is a financing mechanism for a project or company carried out through the internet by means of the massive sale of a crypto asset. In an ICO, the project seeking money issues a certain amount of crypto assets or tokens on a previously existing Blockchain platform and delivers them to investors in exchange for cryptocurrencies. The entire operation is developed using smart contracts that are responsible for automating the process of token distribution according to the requirements established by the ICO promoter. Upon fulfillment of the payment condition, the contract automatically assigns and sends the corresponding amount of tokens to the investor's wallet. A single platform contains 1,843 ICOs from 162 countries distributed among more than 20 types of industries.
WHAT REGULATION WILL IT HAVE?
Spain has joined the global push to advance the regulation of the nascent crypto-economy. The choice is for a legal framework that protects investors and entrepreneurs who opt for the token economy as a financing route. The CNMV and the Bank of Spain issued a statement in which they underline the need to undertake, as soon as possible, changes in the regulatory system of financial markets. On February 8, 2018, the CNMV and the Bank of Spain published a joint statement on "cryptocurrencies" and "initial coin offerings" (ICOs). Many national and international authorities have already published warnings regarding the implicit risks for investors. One of the most relevant in the European sphere is that published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in November 2017. On a global scale, a statement from January 18 by IOSCO also stands out, which, additionally, provides access to those made by multiple national supervisory bodies. The finance ministers and central bank governors of France and Germany sent, on February 7, a joint letter to the Minister of Economy of Argentina, who holds the presidency of the G-20, in which they requested that phenomena such as Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and ICOs be included in the agenda, and that a report be issued by the International Monetary Fund analyzing the implications of virtual currencies for financial stability and to advance cross-border regulation.
BLOCKCHAIN AND GOVERNANCE
The new social order of the 21st century implies the loss of trust in traditional institutions, which will not disappear, but will cede space to redistribute power relations. By returning control to the people, Blockchain displaces traditional intermediaries—central banks, patent registration offices, record labels, notaries and contract custodians, electoral commissions, energy companies, etc.—and opens the door to new forms of personal expression, social ecosystems, and economic interactions. Blockchain technology, understood as a chain of blocks that provides an immutable record of transactions made through a network, will have far-reaching social and economic implications. Blockchain has the potential to transform entire industries and to be a force for transparency and integrity in the world, to eradicate bribery and corruption and transform social, economic, and political paradigms.
Through Blockchain technology, we have the potential to store, verify, and transmit anything of value to the human condition: birth certificates, driver's licenses, intellectual property rights, professional recognitions, educational degrees, bank accounts, medical history, insurance policies, donations, legal contracts, and also votes. Now we can imagine that potential in the world of digital government, authenticating any document, any transaction securely and directly. A new and disruptive way to carry out faster, more secure, and fully digital forms of government and processes. With enormous potential. The future is already here, a more open, secure, transparent, inclusive, reliable, and highly digital future.