People often psyche themselves out of understanding how blockchain works. This technology has a big reputation, and it *is* a big leap from what was previously possible.. The presence of difficult technical details in the white papers doesn’t help.

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Despite the temptation for most blockchain developers to try and build the most *revolutionary, world-changing* product ever, most of the best blockchains are simple in practice.

You can make the process of understanding different blockchains easier by viewing it through the lens of *intentional simplicity*. That’s when we admit that we aren’t going to be able to handle a ton of complexity, so we choose to simplify towards an easier way of looking at something.

Most blockchains can be boiled down to one or two key features that define the major use case of the technology. The challenge is to figure out what that is for each one.

<h3>Three Examples of Small Blockchain Ideas With Huge Impact</h3>

**(1) Reward Scheduling**

In the music industry, artists have a notoriously difficult time getting all of the money that they are theoretically entitled to. Labels often use misleading tactics to take more than is fair… and the timing of payments is part of what makes that possible.

Many royalty payments in the music industry only happen twice a year and are delayed by 12-18 months from the time they were earned. This makes it hard for artists to keep track of what they should be earning.

In contrast, blockchain platforms usually pay instantly. In Steemit’s case this means every post’s rewards become available as soon as the seven day voting period is over. 

It’s much easier to keep track of how much money you have coming in with this system. Being paid instantly is also a much easier kind of income for a musician to survive on, especially when they are first starting. There is no reason to wait 12 months to get paid with today’s technology.

**(2) Own Your Own Data**

In the current state of most social media platforms, the centralized company that built the service owns and monetizes the users’ data. Facebook is notorious about using their treasure trove of info to serve ads, and they are far from the only ones with this kind of business model.

With blockchain, users can take ownership of their own data. This allows for a much fairer and less exploitative system where each user can do what they personally feel is right with their browsing history and site preferences.

Some people will desire privacy above all else. For them, the best solution is to hide all of their data permanently so that no company can know more about them than is absolutely necessary.

Other people will happily sell their own data and earn some extra money. This is a great alternative to letting social media companies siphon off that money for themselves. Whatever you personally will choose to do, the important thing is that you will be empowered to make that choice in the first place.

**(3) Own Your Own Money**

This is the original use case of blockchain. For far too long, people became completely used to the idea of allowing banks to hold on to all of “their” money. Sometimes an event would shake consumer confidence in the banks - like bank failures during America’s Great Depression - but as time went on, these blips on the radar were forgotten.

Physical cash and gold were viable banking alternatives or some people with smaller amounts of money.

But the real game changer for money was Bitcoin. BTC showed that people could securely and privately store large amounts of wealth without relying on any third parties.

There is a lot of work to be done as we learn the right way for mankind to govern Bitcoin. But Bitcoin has clearly already changed where the leverage lies in the global financial system.

<h3>Making Blockchain Easy</h3>

In 2018 I hope to resist the urge to let blockchain feel scary and complicated. Whenever I have questions, I am just going to ask them and try to find the answers.

Sometimes those answers are difficult to grasp. Whenever it comes down to complex mathematics or programming code, I may have to admit defeat. But there are many times when seemingly confusing concepts open up with the discovery of some new info online.

With Google available at all times, there is no need to guess or get frustrated about not having information. All we have to do is get better at research.

And after your first few dozen blockchain analyses, the whole thing gets a lot easier. There’s only a half dozen or so main categories of blockchains once you learn to spot the patterns, even if new projects are popping up every day.

Learning is fun and often easier than it seems. In blockchain, most of the hard stuff is at the beginning. If you can get past that, you’ll be on the path to wisdom.

Good luck.

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