Bart Verstige, a civil law notary and director of the Royal Notary Society, does not believe that blockchain will make its functionality redundant. “Blockchain records what has been said but not whether it is true. We check what has been put into business, and also provide our clients with legal support. In addition, it is also about confidentiality for us, you don’t want your will to be public.”
International money transfer can also be done more efficiently and cheaper without an intermediary. This is already happening, for example in El Salvador. The Salvadoran president’s argument for the recent adoption of bitcoin has been the large Salvadoran enclave in the United States. They incur exorbitant costs to send money home.
A less well-known example is the issuance of shares or bonds, with which banks earn a lot of money as advisors. This is also possible via blockchain applications. The World Bank, among others, has experimented with this for years.
A requirement for the protocol economy is easy access to and storage of data in a decentralized and secure manner. The bank wrote that good regulations are necessary for this.
It is very difficult to say how long it will take for the “protocol economy” to actually become a factor, according to Wessels. In addition to regulations, it also depends on how quickly technological development progresses. So there is still plenty of time to come up with alternative services, Wessels says. “You can embrace it and make sure you treat your services differently.”
digital money
In the report, the bank also discusses digital money, which many central banks are working on, such as the European Central Bank, which, according to Wessels, is not a precursor.
How such digital money can be programmed in such a way that it can only be spent on certain things is still being investigated. In this case, the government subsidy for housing or study can be programmed to be used only to pay rent or tuition fees.
You can also specify a time limit in which the benefit must be spent. If not, the user’s money loses its value.
