TECHNOLOGY
COVER STORY
REVOLUTIONARY ROADS TO FINTECH AND CRYPTO SPOTLIGHT The cover story intends to examine the significance of the latest technologies in the financial service industry. It also attempts to objectively evaluate the theoretical and historical significance of cryptocurrencies and shed light on trending topics in the fintech industry.
F
intech helps resolve some of the most complex problems related to trading and transaction if it stands by its foundational ideas. Considering the wide appreciation of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and several others receive along with blockchain technology, which enables the existence of cryptocurrency, one can easily guess that “fintech” revolutionizes not merely the online financial services but the digital economy as a whole!
intermediary. All of these transactions are recorded in a distributed ledger, widely known as the blockchain, and verified by the network through cryptography. The crypto-blockchain ecosystem subverts central banks or similar institutions between transactions. Bitcoin was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.
BIGGER AND BROADER LANDSCAPE OF FINTECH
The blockchain ecosystem helps businesses develop apps and smart contracts and facilitate quick and secure transactions. It is essentially a digital ledger of enormous transactions and they are duplicated and distributed across the network of computer systems on the blockchain. All of the activities of blockchain are managed and administered using cloud-based service providers. The distributed ledger technology (DLT) and the complexity it carries out to maintain decentralized records of transactions invalidate the scope of any financial frauds. Each block in the chain records several transactions, and every new transaction that occurs on the blockchain would have a “digital identity” along with the digital identity of the previous transaction.
The finance sector is interwoven with technology since its early stages to offer customers a better experience in terms of loans, trading, and transactions. The pace of the evolution in the financial sector happened faster than normal in terms of currency or check-based transactions to credit or debit card-based transactions across the globe. In parallel, customers are introduced to mobile banking, instant loans, online payments, and more. When techfin enterprises i.e., Google, Amazon, Alibaba, Apple, and several others initiated digital transactions through stand-alone mobile apps and unified payment interfaces (UPI), the concept of fintech received wider appreciation. However, today’s landscape of fintech is incredibly broader compared to earlier predictions and calculations.
BITCOIN DISRUPTION The earliest decentralized digital currency, Bitcoin, ignited the financial revolution. The term revolution ideates as the exchanges of Bitcoin happen between users through peer-to-peer networks without an
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DISTRIBUTED DIGITAL LEDGERS AND SECURE FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS
The following are some of the vital properties of DLT: • Programmable: The blockchain is programmable for smart contracts • Secure: No scope for intrusion and fraud • Anonymous: Users can protect their privacy • Distributed: The copy of transactions is distributed and transparent to all participants in the block
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