By now, the masses have heard of blockchain. They may understand loosely what the technology is — a distributed ledger for recording cryptocurrency transactions. Yet there’s a whole crateload of other capabilities most folks haven’t heard of. The potential use cases are there, but they’ve been stifled by unwieldy tools and interfaces built for software developers, not consumers.

To bring forth new use cases and boost blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption, the enterprise needs approachable tools built for laymen, according to Nik Kalyani (pictured), co-founder of TryCrypto, which has a mission to create free, open-source content and tools to make blockchain and cryptocurrency more accessible to users.

“Mainstream users have a very challenging time with using anything blockchain or cryptocurrency related,” Kalyani said.

Anyone who’s ever examined the current selection of technologies will understand why. The ecosystem of blockchain and crypto products and tools was created by developers for developers. In other words, they tend to require a level of technical skill and know-how that “regular” people lack. There are lots of piece parts they have to fiddle with before they can do anything useful. A smooth, intuitive end-user experience is typically not to be had, according to Kalyani.

These are simply not the makings of a smash hit in the consumer tech market. “People really need to step back and look at the user experience and say, ‘What are the friction points, and how can we eliminate them?’ And that needs to happen before blockchain and cryptocurrency can have mass adoption,” Kalyani said. 

Kalyani spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the DevNet Create event in Mountain View, California. They discussed Kalyani’s work to simplify blockchain tools for consumers and build out novel use cases (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE spotlights Nik Kalyani in our Startup of the Week feature.

Blockchain fatigue

Deloitte LLP’s “2018 Global Blockchain Survey” found that 59% of early adopters in the business community believe blockchain has potential to disrupt their industries and the overall economy. “The problem, respondents say, is that for all the talk about blockchain’s promise, there are very few active use cases they can currently employ to advance their beliefs,” according to the report. “As a result, a certain ‘blockchain fatigue’ is beginning to set in among those who feel its potential has been over-communicated, while its real-world benefits remain elusive.”

Perhaps this is because many of blockchain’s useful features have been unexplored. This could be due to too excess focus on the technology as a database or financial record keeper.

“Blockchain is one of those technologies that is misunderstood quite a bit,” Kalyani said. 

Contrary to some misguided assumptions, it’s not a perfect, catch-all system for recording any kind of data. We already have a tried-and-true technology for storing data — it is called a database. To be sure, blockchain can function as a database — a slow one that does not perform nearly as well as any purpose-built database available. Any use case that simply replaces a database with blockchain is likely to fail, according to Kalyani.

Where blockchain is highly useful is in situations with a number of untrusted parties. Supply chain, decentralized business models, and anonymous content-sharing are some use cases that spring to mind.

Kalyani developed a blockchain-powered platform called WhenHub Interface that illustrates this. It enables many decentralized parties to work together without friction. It connects experts on every imaginable topic with people willing to pay for their knowledge. Beekeepers, plumbers, lawyers, bounty hunters — all offer their brains for picking via video call. The whole transaction is handled via blockchain with WhenHub’s cryptocurrency, Apple Pay or Google Pay. The platform launched just a few months ago and now has about 75,000 users, according to Kalyani. 

The key to WhenHub’s usability is its built-in wallet and signup tokens. They allow users to instantly participate on the platform without knowing anything about cryptocurrencies or blockchain. While developing WhenHub, Kalyani realized that this inviting, easy end-user experience was the missing piece to broad blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption.

That inspired him to create TryCrypto.

Blockchain and crypto for dummies

Some of the basic terms associated with blockchain and cryptocurrency are widely misunderstood, according to Kalyani. For example, many people do not understand what a digital wallet is.

“The very word wallet is the problem, because it gives this idea that there’s something within it … There’s nothing in the wallet —  it’s just a placeholder for your [coin] addresses,” he said.

TryCryto offers a tool called PhotoBlock, which uses a photo and emojis in place of the mysterious wallet.

With the hard technical parts demystified, both developers and consumers can explore blockchain use cases more freely. This requires that they understand the simple purpose of a smart contract. Many people are confused by the term, Kalyani pointed out. A smart contract is simply an application, or programming code, that runs on the virtual machines on blockchain. It’s called a contract, because once it’s out there, it’s immutable, which means the rules are fixed and can’t be changed. 

“When you create a smart contract, what you’re doing is handling a very small amount of data that you want to persist forever that runs with some rules,” he said.

A noble calling for blockchain

TryCrypto has built a tool called Public Record that allows people to anonymously share content on blockchain with smart contracts. These could be extremely helpful to populations in countries ruled by despots or where free speech may be hindered. They may have photos proving corruption or crime on the part of officials, for example.

“They are reluctant to share it, because it could be traced back and have adverse consequences,” Kalyani said.

Public Record will push photos onto InterPlanetary File System, a decentralized file system. It will anonymize the photo, strip all info from the camera itself, like GPS, camera model, etc. It will then put a hash of that on the blockchain and make it available by location. The photos are completely anonymous and impossible to track back to the poster, according to Kalyani. The public can go to any location and look at all the photos people there have taken.  

“What we also do is manipulate the colors and tones of the photo a little bit, so it’s impossible to even use AI to go back and reverse engineer and figure out who created the photo,” Kalyani stated. 

This is an example of the rich possibilities that blockchain has outside of the expected cryptocurrency domain. Kalyani hopes that simpler tools for end users will lead to the creation of more novel use cases.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the DevNet Create event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the DevNet Create event. Neither Cisco Systems Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE