How Distributed Ledger Technologies Will Take Over the World

For the past decade, the world has seen the emergence of a new kind of ecosystem that is driven by decentralization rather than by centralization which has been the norm so far.

The new field which is driven by distributed ledger technologies (DLT) has made everyone wonder if we are on the cusp of something new, fresh and exciting.

The truth is that the World has been too dependent on centralized systems which have driven up cost, exposed majority of the participants in such systems to various security challenges, given power to few at the top of the hierarchy of authority and has made many ecosystems that are dependent on technology at their core to become somewhat rigid and inflexible.

Decentralized technologies, however, create a broad-based consensus mechanism that serves as the basis for operations.

Decision making now requires cooperation which in itself is the solution for the solution to the Byzantine Generals problem which has dogged how centralized systems work.

When it comes to distributed ledger technologies taking over the world, the following factors must ensue for such to occur.

State Actors Must Recognize the importance of Distributed Ledger Technologies: The current anti-blockchain stance of nations and their various regulatory agencies has created a negative perception as regards blockchain technology which is a type of Distributed Ledger Technology.

This is however set to change as the recent encouragement of the technology by the Chinese President and the adoption of rules, laws, and standards by the Chinese government indicates that DLT will indeed play a crucial role in several fields in the next decade.

Notwithstanding, certain governments are still yet to grasp that the old order of centralized technologies is about to give way to a new order which the Chinese and other DLT-friendly governments have seen and are looking forward to.
Ann example of such moves is the “Keep-big-tech-out-of-finance” act which the democratic caucus of the United States House of representatives seeks to pass into law in what has been seen by many as a response to Facebook’s Libra which has been at the fore of events in the decentralized finance(defi) space in recent times.

Big technology will have one thing or the other to do with finance and other field based on the introduction of Distributed Ledger Technologies but can be regulated in this regard.

Proper Education About the Different Kinds of Distributed Ledger Technologies Must Ensue: Most people in the World today have associated only blockchain technology as a distributed ledger technology. Yes, blockchain technology may have been the first fully functional DLT but here are others which are in play currently (such as the Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm) which are also DLT’s as well.

As such, proper education on what DLT’s are will make a world of difference and will even spur many to come up with innovations their own which will spur mass adoption of this wonderful phenomenon.

Education is also needed because many people still see the DLT world as a geeks-only playground where it is only those that understand the techspeak are the ones that can use this technology.
Education will enable everyone to realize that it's quite easy to understand and deploy across any platform in any location and for different kinds of use-case scenarios.

DLT Corporate Entities Must Lobby Lawmakers to create favorable Laws: As part of the process of getting adoption off the ground for DLTs lobbying of lawmakers and other government entities to create laws, rules and regulations that will be favorable to the DLT community is of immense importance.

So much so that lobbying also brings awareness of how exactly DLT can improve the lives of the people of the jurisdictions that such lawmakers come from in the same way the internet has improved our lives as well.

Ripple Labs' opening of a lobbying office in Washington D.C is a perfect example of making this happening.

If more DLT companies did this on a broad scale, it will be seen by the political office holders that the DLT community is a force to be reckoned with and the appropriate laws that enable easy implementation and operation of DLT systems will also be passed.

Research and Development into the Implementation of DLT Systems: Further research and development into the various kinds of DLT systems will enable faster adoption due to an exponential increase in the various kinds of innovations that will become available.

An example of this is the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) which aims to create a common set of standards that will enable the deployment of tokens off the Ethereum blockchain which is also a kind of DLT.

The Alliance includes heavy hitters R3, Microsoft, IBM among others.

If there were more initiatives like this that spur adoption there will be no shortage of DLTs for different kinds of industries.

With the above in mind, it is pertinent to note that while the road toward full adoption may seem arduous, we all need to be reminded that this is the first time in human history that adoption of a certain kind of technology has been the fastest.
As such, it can be said without a doubt that Distributed Ledger Technologies shall indeed take over the world!