For this week’s episode of the LodeStar Lending Leaders Podcast, Alayna chats with Molly Elmore, Partner at Valhil Advisors and co-host of the new podcast Escape Velocity, about how Blockchain is changing the internet and the economy at large.

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain is the next version of the internet. The internet gave us, one, social media and, two, the beginning of the creator economy. But these were both centralized in the big companies—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.

The problem: no way to send money to people through the internet. You can send an invoice, a credit card, etc. Blockchain solves that. Now we can have a truly internet-based economy.

“The Blockchain Revolution”

Blockchain revolution will decentralize the internet. It’s relational, in that you don’t have a third party (ie. PayPal) presiding over an exchange of value. And blockchains are public currency, so the accounting ledger they provide will be public.

This will usher in another big change: MasterCard and other biggies don’t want small transactions—say $1. They charge you fees, insist on minimums. So, businesses that use big credit card companies adjust their billing model to meet the preferences of the big company presiding over the transaction.

But blockchains take the big credit card company and bank rules out of the equation. There’s just the creator, the purchaser, and the value exchanged. And the rules of exchange will change as a result of that shakeup.

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