Don and Alex Tapscott have published an article on Time to give you a taste of what can be found in their upcoming book, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World.

They start with the idea of the technological genie being released from its bottle. What will the genie disrupt for the better? The Tapscotts posit that it’s not the social web, big data, or self-driving cars (many of us are still waiting for jetpacks!), but the blockchain. Blockchain is the tech behind Bitcoin, and the Tapscotts say “this technology represents nothing less than the second generation of the Internet”.

It holds the potential to transform money, business, government and society.

The Tapscotts then explain the difference between sending files and sending money on the internet. When you send a file, you send a copy of the file. When you send money, you have to rely on powerful third-party intermediaries to establish trust, transfer value, and settle transactions if there are disputes.

These intermediaries have their downsides. They are hackable, they take fees for their services, and they undermine our privacy. Also, they are not available to everyone, especially those in developing countries who don’t have the assets for a bank account.

How does blockchain, the tech behind Bitcoin, play a role in this? First, blockchain is “the first native digital medium for peer-to-peer value exchange.”

Read the full article on Time.