It's official now but this past Wednesday (2 days ago)advance word went out at a blockchain event in New York City that Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. will be issuing a coin that will have parity with the Japanese yen. This coin will enable standard transactions, such as shopping or transfer of money between individuals (for example, splitting of a bill after a meal or drinks), at much lower costs as compared to credit cards.
What's cool about this is how undramatic the announcement is. It's not going to upend, democratize, kill an incumbent or otherwise do anything except make certain kinds of transactions easier or less expensive. And therein lies the power of what's being done.. Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in particular are becoming mainstream.
A show of hands please. How many TCP/IP meetups or events do you go to? Yeh, I thought not. How about an smtp event? Been to one of those lately? Again, I thought as much. You get my point I'm sure. The underlying infrastructure of Internet 1.0 is just not interesting anymore because for most of us, It. Just. Works.
However long it takes, so many blockchain and distributed ledger technology applications will be similarly boring. Are we there yet?
Japan's Biggest Bank Is Releasing Its Own Cryptocurrency In March