Although cryptography played a major role in Entente and Allied victory against the Central and Axis powers in both the First and Second World War by securing and intercepting strategic military communication, cryptography first became a global phenomenon when Satoshi Nakamoto successfully combined politics, mathematics, computer science, economics and hardware technology to invent the first globally adopted first principles Bitcoin blockchain in 2009.

Since Bitcoin’s invention, exponential advancements in blockchain technology have led to the cryptocurrency industry now surpassing over 1 trillion US dollars in market value, which means cryptography based applications has successfully established itself as a new financial asset class together with asset classes such as commodities, equities, fixed income and foreign exchange.

• It’s kind of funny how all cryptography needed to generate bestselling Netflix documentaries was to become synonymous with money by creating a decentralized database securely facilitating transactions and storage of a limited supply of bitcoins. After all, cryptography has secured military communication long before the World Wars, starting at least with early accounts of secret writing or so called stenography by the Greek father of history, Herodotus, 5000 years BC.
• The difference from Herodotus and later the World Wars is the emergence of powerful computers in the 1970s to decrypt sensitive information that is protected by encryption.
•  Every day, these hackers are developing more and more advanced tools to access strategic information ranging from military and infrastructure data to bank accounts and even private user information. 
• Much of the user and even military/infrastructure information is stored on a centralized platform, which creates a single attack vector for hackers. Imagine, for example, the chaos that would ensue if a bad actor was able to shut down the US PowerGrid or access the US nuclear codes.  

However, for everyday users much of their information is stored for profit purposes by big technology platforms via the Internet, which are corporations that monetize or sell user information to third parties.

• With more users adopting the internet, the more power rests with these big technology platforms, which can be seen in the trillion dollars in market values of Amazon, Google and Apple.
• These platforms do provide good stuff like iPhones, instant messaging, telehealth, delivery, banking and much more, but the internet is also eroding privacy piece by piece every day and concentrating all that power with a few giant technology platforms is becoming a problem.

 Ultimately, I believe people should decide for themselves how private information should be used and blockchain is the best tool for making privacy on the internet private again. By relying on cryptography, user information can still be accessed by firms trying to provide great services without tying that information to a specific user.