Can we pay for a coffee with a virtual currency? Will they use some like bitcoin or ethereum to pay us pensions? Will we be rewarded with cryptocurrency for reaping the harvest from farming games? These concepts may still sound like something distant to you, but nothing is further from reality. Virtual money is already here. Messi's contract, for example, included an important part of the salary in PSG tokens, his own currency; in El Salvador, bitcoin is already legal tender; many artists already earn more money selling their works in virtual markets than in physical ones; and, in our country, you can buy 'pieces' of houses with tokens that give you a later return for renting or selling the property.
And it's all based on blockchain technology. To explain it, imagine a book with blank pages. Its sheets are connected to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the planet, in such a way that when you write something in one of them, it is recorded in those other books distributed around the world. Thus, copies are created with an additional condition: it cannot be modified unless there is consensus among all the owners of those books, not just the author. And, of course, the date and time the original entry was made is recorded and the author receives a certificate that this text is his property.
In this context, where cryptocurrencies and projects with them are already in fields such as art, football, finance, education and even religion (Jesus Coin was created in 2017 although it would later disappear), at Uppers we have asked Eneko Knörr, Miguel Caballero and Susana R. Urgel, experts in blockchain and cryptocurrencies, about the utilities that already exist today with this new technology and, above all, what the near future holds for us.
Eneko Knörr (left), Susana R. Urgel and Miguel Caballerouppers.esHow do you imagine pensions in an environment with cryptocurrencies?
Let's start with pensions. Eneko Knorr, co-founder of Onyze, a digital asset custody service, is clear: "Unfortunately, the future of pensions is very dark in our country because the system is not sustainable. Without being an investment advice, I think it is good idea to diversify our savings and invest at least part in cryptocurrencies because there is a possibility that it will be a very profitable investment that can help us live retirement with a better mattress," he explains.
And the idea of Miguel Caballero, co-founder of projects such as Tutellus, Rentaal or Fittoken, is not very far from that of his colleague: "In the same way that the world needs banks, but not banks, citizens have to to be free to organize their retirements as they want without depending on the State In a way, Social Security is a kind of Ponzi scheme, because you are contributing all your life and when you retire you have nothing unless there are more contributors in the future who pay the pensions of those of the past, but your money is not waiting for you in a safe", he tells us. "I think a lot of decentralized products are going to be created, so that you don't depend on anyone and when the time comes you can release them without depending on anyone."
For Susana R. Urgel, Professor of Blockchain and Organizations Without Bosses at IE Business School, the vision is a bit more optimistic. He believes that, with this new technology, there may be an "automatic and immutable allocation of your pension, as well as the corresponding one in case of widowhood, without using papers, as well as the possibility of additional income to the pension from passive income associated with physical and digital assets, the ease of staying connected virtually with other people of the same 'mental' age in the metaverse or taking virtual trips never imagined thanks to the union of Blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality".
In commerce, fashion, real estate or video games
Quietly, many companies are starting to adopt blockchain technology on a daily basis. And it may be that, in most cases, you have not even noticed. "For example, Carrefour's free-range chicken already offers you the possibility of reading a QR code and being able to guarantee and ensure its food quality by giving you access to its entire history," explains Urgel. "We can verify that the luxury bag that we want to acquire is authentic or fake, since brands such as LVMH already incorporate blockchain as a tool for authentication and tracking of the entire distribution chain."
"NIKE is creating NFT tokens associated with the shoes you buy, so they are associated with your digital identity and you can even have their digital representation and use them in the so-called metaverse," she continues. "And today you can already invest in real estate without having large capitals, with options such as Reental, where you participate with other people in acquiring tokens of a flat from which you will obtain periodic returns derived from its rental as well as that derived from its future sale".
Another example of how the blockchain is already with us is in the field of video games. "There are beginning to be some gaming products where you are earning tokens for playing and the user does not realize it. You earn 'tokens' for doing something. The best example is Axie Infinity," says Caballero. It is the clear example that, at some point, you will be able to earn real money being a virtual farmer.
And the future? Where will we be in 10 years with this technology?
For a person over 50, this technology will come fully into their last working years and before retirement, so we have asked our experts to do an exercise in the future to try to know what the world will be like with blockchain in 2031.
According to Knorr, "Blockchain will fail in the implementation of enterprise projects that use mostly closed networks, and will continue to grow exponentially in the world of open blockchain networks (Ethereum, Bitcoin, etc.). There will be an explosion in decentralized financial services, which we call decentralized finance (DeFi).” Banks, in this sense, will have to work hard in a new environment if they do not want to see how they lose customers to new decentralized technologies.
Caballero agrees with the diagnosis, who advocates that "many processes today are going to be decentralized but we are not going to realize it from the user's point of view. There is a lot of intermediary that is destined to disappear because its only function has been that and with decentralization and crypto, there are plenty. It will be present in all sectors of society." Will we be able to have our money saved without the need for a bank? It is a future 10 years but it is already happening today with decentralized banking.
However, the most important challenge will be how to make it visually appealing to the general public. "We are like in the internet of 98 at the level of e-commerce. This world is five years old, not much more, but it is beginning to be easier to use. It takes more time for an app to arrive that is used by your mother or the mine without knowing behind it is working with something decentralized", indicates Caballero.
And also that the technology is becoming increasingly known and regulated, which, in Knörr's opinion, "will cause its use to increase exponentially and all unfounded criticism will disappear (whether it is a scam, a pyramid scheme , whether it is used by criminals...)".
