Blockchain technology is the most exciting advancement over the next 10 years. Blockchain is the distributed ledger technology that enables peer-to-peer transactions without trusted third parties and allows for permanent, immutable, and transparent data recording.

Though in its very early stage, blockchain technology has been implemented in diverse industries mainly due to its immutable, transparent and efficient nature. For instance, in the healthcare industry, blockchains can be used to retain health records permanently, overcoming the pain point of lost medical data in different hospital systems. In supply chain management, blockchain can trace a product along the whole manufacturing process, reducing the time delays, human errors and fraud risks of manual documentation. In the energy market, transactions can be executed automatically between energy producers and buyers by using smart contract blockchains, bypassing the OTC exchanges.

Among various industries, blockchain technology is becoming mature in the financial services industry. Among all banks, JP Morgan took the lead in using blockchain technology to facilitate its businesses. Since 2015, JP Morgan has launched its private blockchain (Quorum) and JPM coin, hoping to leverage blockchain technology to minimise costs and secure real-time cross-border payment. Other financial institutions such as Barclays and HSBC also follow suit.

Although blockchain technology exits for over 10 years, I believe in the next ten years, blockchain technology will enjoy more growth momentum, particularly in financial services because of the transparent business environment it creates, the decreased entry threshold for customers, and an alternative financial asset to hedge against USD devaluation. First, finance is built on mutual trust between counterparties. This is because transactions only happen when they are willing to believe that what they exchange is of the same value. To prevent fraud and deceptive trading behaviours that break trust, intermediaries such as banks serve as trusted third parties to facilitate trades by verifying counterparties' identities and money values. However, intermediaries do it for profit and charge each party a high transaction fee. Instead, blockchain technology can eliminate the need for a third party because it verifies transactions (KYCs, transaction values, etc) on-chain through cryptography. The verification process is completely transparent and temper-proof, so counterparties that trade on the blockchain can naturally trust each other under this transparent business environment. Second, the entry threshold for new users is decreasing and will continue decreasing. With continuous upgrades of Ethereum and the booming development of blockchain-related infrastructure such as Layer2 and crypto wallets, blockchain transactions are less costly and more user-friendly, enabling wider adoptions of blockchain to occur in the future. Third, as the "digital gold", Bitcoin can hedge against USD depreciation. Since the unpeg of USD for gold, USD has been decreasing in value caused by the unconstrained money printing of the Fed. In contrast, bitcoin is programmed to be of limited supply and halve every four years. Money oversupply is destined to happen because governments will use inflation (money oversupply) to boost the economy. Thus, more people will turn to Bitcoin to shed away from USD depreciation.