After a decade of divorce, home repossession, business collapse, bailiffs calling and going bankrupt Blockchain gave me a means to rebuild what I'd lost

Let me first of all explain about Blockchain, It is a new technology, the technology that underpins Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It is not, however, owned by anyway - it is open source technology that has the power to change the world. 

Blockchain is immutable (meaning it cannot be changed - think voting). It is transparent, disruptive, disintermeditary and decentralized.  While the status quo are worried - it is disruptive - the opportunities it offers are mind blowing. It really has changed my life.

It's true. Before Blockchain I was struggling to rebuild my life following a decade of divorce, home repossession, business collapse, bailiffs calling and going bankrupt.

I had begun to put some pieces in place - I changed the law to allow bankrupts to run for public office (say thank you Deputy Mick Wallace) and then I ran for Europe earning 11,500 votes as an independent. I studied a Masters in Screenwriting but it all seemed a bit hit and miss. 

Then in 2016 my girls and I had our lease terminated on our rented accommodation. I fought tooth and nail to stay put. I searched all the byways in search of new accommodation. I asked to rent barns, castles and everything in between but could find nothing.

In the end a little one bedroom cottage was secured for my two girls - now young adults - and I went couch surfing in a friend's house. As it happens I wrote an article in the Irish Times (read it here) and soon after found a cottage of my own to rent. But I was still only treading water.

Which brings me to Blockchain.

Blockchain and I were introduced last Autumn. It felt like coming home. Everything about this tremendous technology and what it can offer the world excites me to the core. Once, while giving an interview to two young undergraduates in Denmark on what Blockchain can do for the world, I started to cry. I am not sure who was more surprised but my two interviewers confessed they had not had a subject cry on them before. Ah, a world of firsts.

So, since I first met Blockchain my life has utterly changed. One aspect is that I now go around the world speaking about Blockchain. I was in Kiev in January, Austin in March, Amsterdam in April and Muscat in Oman next week where I am not only speaking but I am chairing a two day conference. 

See Oman conference here

I am asked sometimes - by those outside the industry - how has this happened. (Those inside the industry don't need to ask - they just know it is a crazy world). And I tell people I am pivoting my 30 years' experience into Blockchain. 

And that is how Blockchain saved my life.

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