Many question the how cryptocurrency will affect the world of banking. Will it really have any impact and, if so, what will it be?

Fortunately, we have enough experience with the Internet to learn what to expect. The lessons of what happens are clear when this medium shows up at an industry's doorstep.

To start, we know it does a couple of things. This occurred in each situation and continues to keep repeating.

They are:

• obliterates whatever is there
• creates abundance

We can expect a similar trend to take place over the next decade in a number of other sectors. At the moment, we are seeing the foundation laid for this to take place within not only the banking industry but the entire financial arena.

Here are the 5 industries that were already radically altered.

Information

Decades ago, information was slow and costly to come by. From a personal perspective, we had access to very little. There were only a few distributors of information that we received on a daily basis. People either watched the news, read a newspaper, or perhaps opened up a book. This was basically the limit of what they were exposed to.

Within the business world, things were much the same. Information was produced in hard document form either via a typewriter or printer. Then it was copied, mailed, or filed away. We received reports on paper which took time to generate. Correcting errors required going back and redoing the document. This led to the process taking place all over again.

Today, we have access to more information than we could consume in 10,000 lifetimes. At the same time, most of it is free. We simply click on a site and there it is. It comes to us through a variety of mediums.

We also distribute it very easily. Through email, text, messengers or cloud, we can instantly send information to most anyone in the world, again with little to no cost.

Communication

One of the main reasons we can do this with information is the advancement of our communication systems. It has gone multi-media as bandwidth improved.

How many of us remember long distance phone service? There was a time where it cost each minute to talk to someone outside our local calling areas. In the United States, companies like AT&T, MCI, and Sprint made a fortune off this service.

Today, we have multitudes of ways to communicate. No longer are we relegated to just using the telephone. We also can distribute all kinds of media for free. We simply click a few buttons and it is on its way.

Music

Does anyone remember Napster? That was a company that opened up a can of worms.

For those too young to remember, Napster was a file sharing application that came on like a hurricane. People started sharing music with each other, sending the record companies into a frenzy. Obviously, their sales plummeted as people were downloading the songs they wanted online.

At that time, we were in a world where music distribution was via compact disc; each one costing $13-$15 and containing 10 or 12 songs. Naturally, we also needed a physical piece of equipment to play them on (conveniently called a compact disc player).

Fast forward to today. We now have services that enable us to access millions of songs. Between YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify, we can enjoy music (along with other audio recordings) for next to nothing. Many of the platforms are free if we want to endure ads. We can have them removed for a nominal fee though.

Hence, for the cost of one CD, we can access tens of millions of audio recording without the disruption of ads.

Movies

This followed a similar pathway as music.

Like the CD, the DVD was the medium a couple decades ago. People would get videos on disc and watch them through a player. This often required going to a physical store and renting what was desired.

YouTube was the first to start to change this. Like with music, a lot of copyrighted video was (is) found on there. However, it also allowed people all over the world to post their content, again for free. This opened up the door for an entirely new set of "stars".

Naturally, as technology advanced, most due to streaming, the video rental establishments went out of business. The biggest was Blockbuster which found its way to bankruptcy court after basically dominating the most of this sector.

We also have the situation where, for the cost of a few video rentals in the past, we can enjoy round the clock access to thousands of movies and television shows. Services like Netflix and Amazon Prime have nominal subscription fees yet a full platform of video content.

Photography

The final area that radically changed was picture taking. For the average individual, the transition was incredible.

We take somewhere around 2 trillion pictures a year. This is an astronomical amount of photos. The cost to do this is almost zero.

There was a time when people not only bought cameras but also had to supply them with costly film. In addition, after the roll was done, the photos were developed, requiring more money. Therefore, each photo had a cost of a few dimes.

Today, the average individual has none of this. Certainly, there are professional and hardcore hobbyists who still pay thousands of dollars on cameras and the associated lenses. However, for most of us, our smartphones do the job. Since it is all digital, we simply press the button and the photo is on our phone.

Of course, this eliminated the need to get an extra set of photos developed for grandma. There is also no cost associated with distributing them. In the past, we would go to the post office and mail the set of photos. Now, because of the advancements in our communication systems, we simply send it electronically.

As we can see, each of these industries looks remarkably different than it did before the Internet.

Going back to the two characteristics that we see, it is obvious what happened to the liked of Blockbuster, Kodak, and the long distance phone divisions at Sprint and AT&T. We also watched the downfall of many record companies and closing of hundreds of newspapers. Of course, the encyclopedia and atlas companies didn't do so well either.

Not only has the Internet come to finance, it has come to the world of money. This is something that is evident. While we are in the early stages of development, we can already start to understand how cryptocurrency coupled with Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is going to have a major impact.

The same behavior is being repeated as the threat to these companies business models grows. They are turning to governments and regulators for protection. There are court cases. Politicians are espousing how "dangerous" this all is. We see FUD being spread by the media, warning people of the perils of this new technology.

In short, we are seeing history repeat itself.

For that reason, we can count on two things happening as a result of what is taking place. The world of finance and money is about to experience abundance. At the same time, whatever is standing in the way, if it does not adapt, is going to get obliterated.

This is the lesson from the Internet. We can add the retail shopping sector as another one that is in the process of realizing this inevitability.

Like these other industries before it, cryptocurrency is going to bring abundance and obliteration. It is the trend the Internet follows.

The only question is how long until it shows up in a particular industry. For the banking and financial sector, there is a knocking at the door.

Sadly for most of them, they are not prepared for what is coming.

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