# Blockchain: Current Challenges and Future Prospects/Applications
## 6 Conclusions and the Future of Blockchain  
Blockchain is a new technology that must overcome a number of problems before its full advantages can be exploited, but so was the Internet before October 1990, when Sir [PERSON] introduced three fundamental technologies that formed the foundation of the World Wide Web (WWW) and are utilized until today. By the end of 1990, the first web page was posted on the internet, which people could visit and view information on, mostly transmitted through modems and regular telephone lines. However, such information consisted of text only characters, as sounds, images and videos were outside the communication capabilities of that time. Google, Amazon, Facebook, or YouTube were unimaginable at that time, when even sending an email, before the Mosaic web browser was introduced, was considered a technological achievement. Nobody should be surprised, therefore, with blockchain's current limitations, as it is at around the same stage as the Internet was in the mid-1990s. In this paper we discussed the core advantages of blockchain and pointed out that its full potential would be unleashed in the not too distant future [40], with new giant firms, the equivalent of Google, Amazon, and Facebook, emerging to exploit the advantages of blockchain technologies. In this conclusion, we would like to reiterate the value of blockchain and its disruptive nature while also deliberating about its future achievements. A recent Deloitte Global Blockchain Survey [41] concluded that 2019 was a turning point for blockchain when a radical shift happened in the attitudes of business leaders who recognized that blockchain is for real and that it can serve as a pragmatic solution to business problems across industries and use cases. That is, these leaders recognized a shift from \"blockchain tourism\" and exploration towards the building of practical business applications, as blockchain has finally entered the mainstream of business applications. Blockchain guarantees trust, assures immutability/ transparency, and supports disintermediation in addition to providing extra security for transactions executed over the Internet. These are considerable advantages that cannot be ignored, while its disadvantage of the cost of implementation can be depreciated and reduced in a short amount of time, as more experience with applications is gained and blockchain becomes a core technology. Most importantly, however, as usage increases the motivation for improvements will increase, too, as has been the case with the Internet that witnessed substantial advancements over a short period of time. Such advancements will provide solutions to blockchain's inability to scale, significantly reducing usage costs. The future of blockchain will move in two distinct directions. The first will include all those applications requiring decentralized, super secured networks as those discussed above. IoT [42], AVs [43], BCI and BBI will be included in this category as will smart contracts and DAOs. There will be no choice but to use blockchain in these applications. The other direction will include advances in AI that when combined with blockchain can substantially improve its value. Such advances will include improving the safety of big data as well as its ability to decentralize who holds it, currently exclusively owned by companies like Google and Facebook, and democratize ownership and sharing by creating a marketplace where such data can be traded. This will mean that individuals can keep control of their data and decide on their own when and how to make it available to third parties. Moreover, smaller AI players will be able to utilize this data and further advance AI in addition to the big firms, thus breaking their data monopoly.