Blockchain has an unknown 1,000-year history. In 500 BC, the people of Yap on the island of Micronesia used an early version of this system.
Blockchain may be the most important development in storing and sharing information since the advent of the internet itself.. The ability to share information between untrusted parties has the potential to disrupt everything from banking to politics.
Natalie Smolenski, a cultural anthropologist, said in a speech at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai:
As with all advancements, Blockchain is a very new way of doing old things. The new always comes from something old.
Smolenski is currently working on a book that demonstrates that Blockchain is no different and indeed shares similarities with the traditions of some of the world’s oldest tribes.
The unknown 1,000-year history of Blockchain
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The people of the small Micronesia island of Yap in 500 BC had a problem. This community developed a rather strange form of money to trade between people in their villages. Fei stones, many of which still exist today, are giant limestone stone discs that can weigh up to four tons, requiring a wooden pole to be placed in their center and various villagers.
The problem that Fei stones have as a currency is, however attractive when buying and selling it was almost impossible to move. Instead of moving the stones, the people of Yap invented the first recorded example of a decentralized accounting.. Rome is the most successful example of this. Indeed, centralized ledgers still continue to be used by world governments powering the global economy.
Each villager kept in mind records of their purchases and sales according to the stone they owned. When a Fei stone was spent, this new process was informing the villagers to update everyone’s mind map.. If anyone claimed that the stone was theirs, the villagers resorted to their own mental decentralized notebooks.
In today’s system, this happens between computers, not people.. In short, the Blockchain system is actually something from the past, adapted to the present.
Forbes