Blockchain: What is it?

SO. It has come to my attention that we are on the verge of another world-breaking, paradigm switching, business building —and killing— technological innovation that will most likely be an accepted and invisible part of all of our lives within the coming decade. Yup, it's one of those times. It's called the blockchain, and it's not some app or product. It's a legitimate new technology, a genius one at that, with the potential of what the internet had in the late 1900s, or what the radio had before that, or the telephone before that and so on and so forth, you get the picture. Only this time the revolution will first take place in business room, or really anytime an individual makes a purchase. Indeed, the blockchain is an internet of exchange, or in better terms, an automated and easily-accessible ledger that is self-checking, observable, and acts as an unbreakable trust between the dealing parties. It addresses the problem of transfer errors, rendering the terms and contracts between individuals completely backed-up by technology and immune to hacking or foul play. In essence, it's making the transfer of money foolproof AND has the potential to take out the uncertainty and mistrust from almost all contractual agreements and commonalities of everyday life. Fair compensation, voting, royalties in music, safe-to-eat produce, the possibilities can go on and on because the technology is almost universally applicable. Yes you heard that right, it's a lot bigger than a simple banking app. But I want to keep it in business for this post.
Think about this. Common disputes over whether an employee was paid properly and fairly, the kind that used to require lawyers, lots of time, money, and energy are soon going to be non-existent with the blockchain's ledger system, and checking for the legitimacy of business agreements and receipts will take a matter of minutes. A financial firm won't be necessary either, because the system sends the information to each party at the time of the transfer which essentially gets rid of the need for a overseer. It's a direct transfer of funds anywhere in the world, with more security than you could ever have in the past.
And while this technology is already being applied to other industries, the first place you'll really see it is in business. Some of America's corporate giants have already adopted the growing technology into their systems and protocol. Microsoft uses it in conjunction with the golden child of cryptocurrency, the ever-talked-about bitcoin, which has been utilizing the concept since its birth as well as has been being accepted by Microsoft since 2014. Mastercard is also said to be building their own blockchain systems, probably in order to get a leg up on the possibly destructive business consequences that payment handlers, like mastercard, may face with blockchain's arrival. And more will soon join. Because what this new technology intends to do for our very idea of exchange, is fix the most pressing issue that plagues it, which is the middle man, and eliminate the need for it.
While we have applications like cash app and venmo that have addressed direct transfer on a small scale, the problem still remains that transporting funds across the planet takes too long, keeping record of transactions for legal dispute is tedious, and securing payments when there is a lack of trust by either party —which is usually the case— without extensive work from some finance firm is a thing of our imagination. This is where the blockchain will come in. It's a system that works by mathematical consistencies implemented into complex algorithms to see that hiccups are avoided and the money is right. It may even start changing things more quickly than we think.