Jun 8, 2016

Distributed Ledger Technology -- Bitcoin

As most of my friends know, Bitcoins have been one of my passions for the last 5 years. I think it is because it uses open source technology and has the promise to improve currency transparency. This week I received a letter in the mail from Sujata Verma who is Canada's Data Assessment and Evaluation person for Canada's Tax Free Savings Account.  She told me that I had over contributed to my TFSA. I logged in to my Canadian account and clicked on TFSA and low and behold I had not over contributed. So who was right.  I asked my Chartered Accounted and he told me to believe my computer rather than Sujata.
Distributed Ledger Technology doesn't have this problem. There is no need for a central data base. There is no need for reconciliation between what you tell someone and what is the truth.  Processing, recording and auditing of sensitive financial information can be done better with block-chain technology than central databases. With Bitcoin now equal to 11.5 billion it is equal to approximated 1/4 of Canadian's current currency in circulation.
Most of us trust our banks to have the correct figures of our wealth. I guess I need to mention here that my bank had a different amount of contribution room left in my TFSA. Trusting antiquated technology for finding the truth can be costly. Who knows if this distributed Ledger Technology catches on maybe there is hope for open social networking software.