Enterprise blockchain began to take shape in 2016, a time when companies like IBM began leveraging private networks for supply chain management. It was also during 2016 that author Don Tapscott wrote and published Blockchain Revolution, a book that examines how blockchain will transform a number of industries.
Following the release of Blockchain Revolution, Tapscott, who is also a co-founder of the Blockchain Research Institute, published Supply Chain Revolution in August 2020. Given the timing of the book's publication, Supply Chain Revolution detailed how the pandemic of COVID-19 exposed flaws in supply chains around the world, further explaining how blockchain could be used to solve these challenges.
Almost a year after the release of Supply Chain Revolution, Tapscott has published his latest book, Platform Revolution. Unlike his other two books that explain what blockchain is and how it can be applied to advance certain industries, Platform Revolution goes one step further, embracing the thesis that blockchain has achieved "platform status."
Specifically speaking, Tapscott told Cointelegraph that blockchain has matured so much over the years that companies and industries are now building new models on top of blockchain as a "platform." Additionally, Tapscott believes that blockchain has reached a "trivergence" point, making it the best technology in today's digital age:
Understanding the trivergence of blockchain technology
Tapscott explains through the eight chapters of Platform Revolution how companies, supply chains and sectors of the economy are based on blockchain as a platform for further progress.
To describe blockchain's trivergence with AI, machine learning, and IoT, Chapter 1 of Platform Revolution discusses how blockchain can future-proof the digital age. In a nutshell, this chapter talks about digital conglomerates like Facebook (now Meta) and Google, noting that these entities act as the owners of user data. “We create the data and these companies take it from them. So we're left with next to nothing, we can't monetize our data or secure that data as our privacy is being undermined," Tapscott said.
To solve this ongoing dilemma, Chapter 1 explains how open access, fair participation, and sovereign identity in a blockchain network can improve access to the web. In particular, the chapter focuses on how blockchain can solve the problem of manipulation, promote fairness, protect the rights of content creators, and more. While this may be so, Chapter 1 also details why the trivergence of blockchain, AI, and IoT will ultimately lead to Web 3.0. This is described as a network where billions of people, devices, and decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, will be able to transact and analyze data for better decision making.
The second chapter of the book examines the impact of blockchain on big data. "Big data" is characterized here as a new asset class that may outperform all other assets, given the notion that digital conglomerates have been storing user data privately for years. However, through encryption technologies such as those found within blockchain networks, new privacy rights and data ownership rights could be achieved.
Chapter 3 is an important section of Platform Revolution, as Tapscott and co-author Anjan Vinod take an in-depth look at the relationship between blockchain and AI. According to Tapscott and Vinod, AI is making blockchain one of the broadest technological revolutions in history. This chapter explains how blockchain can provide a decentralized infrastructure for the entire AI ecosystem. For example, it is noted here that a decentralized blockchain-based solution can ensure a more democratized, yet secure means of transmitting the data needed for AI models.
Chapter 4 focuses more on blockchain and IoT, noting that connected devices will require a ledger to learn and adapt to new things. "It's where theory is put to the test for blockchain," Tapscott writes. While implementation challenges such as quantum computing are also mentioned in Chapter 4, this section ultimately describes Web 3.0 running on a distributed cloud, with a mix of decentralized public and private servers with edge computing capabilities. .
The Threat of Quantum Computing
While the impact of blockchain on autonomous vehicles is discussed in Chapters 5 and 6, ensuring that Web 3.0 remains distributed and quantum-proof is detailed in Chapters 7 and 8 of Platform Revolution. In particular, the quantum threat to the cybersecurity of global IT systems is analysed.
For example, Chapter 7 states that "There is a one in seven chance that a quantum computer will be commercially available by 2026." In turn, Chapter 8 highlights the need to govern standards development at three levels: protocol, application, and ecosystem.
Chapter 8 author Christian Keil details in depth the different layers of the blockchain technology stack, concluding that stakeholder engagement and the power of network effects are necessary for standards development. “The blockchain community needs a standard like OSI, with which cataloging, organizing, and communicating advances in this new technology could be significantly easier,” Keil writes.
How Blockchain Relates to Other Technologies
Platform Revolution concludes with the notion that blockchain is still in its early stages and that its success will depend on how well it manages current challenges and opportunities for its development. While it's hard to predict the future, Tapscott mentioned that the goal behind Platform Revolution is to help people understand how blockchain fits with other technologies:
With this in mind, Platform Revolution is a must-read for people who are curious about the technologies within the second digital world. For example, while some may only be familiar with mainstream concepts like AI, Platform Revolution explains how blockchain relates to artificial intelligence and other popular technologies.
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