Buying a car; today versus blockchain and smart contracts.

6 weeks ago I discovered Blockchain and the Crypto market. At first I was intrigued with how the connection of the technology and the intrinsic value associated with the coins came to be. Now that really isn't a long time to be an expert and I don't claim to be, nor an adviser, but this is more just my layman understanding of how this technology can change what we do today.

Through all of the information I pored over, the underlying concept that spoke to me was the removal of the need to trust in a transaction. I thought about that for a second when this notion crossed my mind. Then the understanding to imagine a world where we could deal in business without the need to create trust in the first place. I mean businesses spend millions if not billions a year in advertising with the main focus being to get you to trust them. The need for this in any transaction is paramount and by removing the need for it creates a fairer, cheaper and faster marketplace.

To put this into perspective I am going to use a couple of examples of this technology to outline how we could simplify the process of buying a car.

Today if you want to buy a car you will need to interact and trust 3 key persons throughout the transaction, the car dealer, the finance broker and the finance lender. Throughout the process after choosing the car the dealer puts you in front of "their" finance broker who will obtain your personal information in order to approve you with a lender generally of "their choosing to purchase the vehicle. The process can take a few days to complete in some instances, depending on the data you can provide to assist in the transaction. The thing other than time is that you have now interacted with three separate businesses in the transaction and no one works for free, so there are fees and commissions built in along the way. Buying a car today is time consuming and expensive.

Let's fast forward to a different transaction. A Blockchain transaction.

You are buying a car today and leaving in it once you have the one you having been looking for. The dealer goes and gets the keys to go for a test drive while you are on your phone asking your bank for the credit for the car. Using your Civic Key CVC you are able to identify yourself and allow your bank access to your credit information instantly making a decision on credit. A smart contract is create and given an order that once the funds have been released to the dealer the lender will hold title over the asset and a repayment scheme will initiate based on the agreed terms of repayment.

After the test drive and you go ahead with your new car you can now use HashCoin on the Emercoin blockchain to transfer the registration of the vehicle to yourself using a smart contract that once the funds are received the transfer of registration will be executed. Once you authorise the transaction of funds the 2 contracts execute simultaneously and you are now the owner of your shiny new car.

All of this taking place in the time it took to choose and test drive the car and without the need for trust. The reason we don't need trust is that the history of the car and the dealers transactions are on the blockchain, able to be checked and rated by anyone at anytime. Transparency in the transaction removes the need to trust and in effect makes for a cheaper purchase as well. We are not paying the broker a commission, as that middle man is now gone, and given we have access to the history of the car the dealer can only ask a fair price.

This is just one example of how the Blockchain can turn a cumbersome and costly process that most of us will have to go through at some stage into a simple, cheap and fast transaction without the worry of trust. So if you do have trust issues then Blockchain is definitely for you.

CryptoLayman