The future for blockchain-based systems is promising, but there needs to be extreme clarity about the capabilities of blockchain.

Blockchain was first announced as a technology at the time of Bitcoin's launch, although it existed earlier. It managed to cope with the task of decentralization in conditions where participants in transaction processes maintain confidentiality and no one trusts anyone.

Having demonstrated unique advantages and compliance with the current market demand, the technology also revealed its certain shortcomings, including those related to the colossal inefficiency of resource use. But its success made cybercurrency the hero of many myths that have nothing to do with reality.

Myth 1: Blockchain Is a Global Distributed Computer

In fact, the nodes of a peer-to-peer system, although spread across the planet, are not the parts of the system that process and collect information into a single pool. These are computing points that simultaneously do the same work of mining cryptocurrency.

At the same time, out of a million operations, only the one that first achieved the correct result gets into the block. All the others simply copy the result and keep the entire transaction history unchanged for the entire existence of the network.

Myth 2: Blockchain Is Infinite - It Is Forever

The problem of the blockchain's eternity rests on the means of its storage.

If today, to store a blockchain, computer hard drives are needed that can hold over 100 GB of information for Bitcoin, and over 200 GB for Ethereum, then we can assume that the age of the cryptocurrency blockchain, if their development rates are maintained, is limited to several decades.

It's just that the capacity of information carriers does not increase proportionally to the growth of the blockchain; it simply lags behind.

Myth 3: Blockchain Will Displace Fiat Money from the Market

Since all the nodes in the system do the same work at the same time, the throughput of the cybercurrency network is equal to the throughput of one node, which is only 7 transactions per second, while a block of information is added to the chain only every 10 minutes.

Synchronization of the network also takes time. Thus, even regular purchases for cryptocurrency via the blockchain take significantly longer than when using the Visa payment system, which processes thousands of payment transactions per second and has a large reserve of increasing the speed of transactions in scalable banking systems.

It turns out that it is unlikely that fiat money will be forced out of the market.

Myth 4: Miners Protect the Blockchain Network

The number of processed transactions and mined Bitcoins do not depend directly on the increase in the number of miners and the growth of mining capacities.

But the number of miners in the network must remain high (for this, the network incentivizes them by increasing their income from commissions), since the  cybercurrency is vulnerable to the so-called 51% attack.

In centralized payment systems, the threat of such an attack does not exist in principle.

Myth 5: Decentralization Is the Basis of Blockchain Stability

It is believed that moving away from central control allows protecting the cybercurrency from control by government agencies.

However, in recent years, for the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, the blockchain has become a hostage to its own Protocol: the amount of mined currency is decreasing, the complexity of calculations is growing - hence, the equipment is becoming more complex, more expensive, miners are forced to unite in pools to receive income, i.e. the nodes are centralized.

If the total capacity of pools located in one country reaches 51%, it may fall under centralized control and the distribution of the network will no longer have any significance for the independence and stability of the blockchain.

Myth 6: Blockchain Cannot Be Changed

The much-talked-about DAO code error showed that it can.

Ethereum developers, in order to return stolen funds to investors, carried out a hard fork in 24 hours and returned the network to its pre-theft state. Investors were not harmed, and the market received two different cryptocurrencies.

Myth 7: Anonymity and Openness of Blockchain

The fact that when making a transaction on the network, the user does not indicate his personal data does not guarantee his privacy at all.

Firstly, when leaving the network, the user will be easily identified as a person, since his personal data is registered in banks, on the stock exchange, or in e-commerce points for cryptocurrency.

The openness of the cybercurrency to everyone present in the network allows the user's payment history to be tracked, and once he withdraws funds from the network, he can be identified.

Read more : Blockchain: Public, Private, or Alliance Chains

Myth 8: Blockchain Makes Transactions Cheap

Creating and maintaining a blockchain infrastructure is a very expensive business, and these costs can only be compensated through payments from those who use it.

So far, transaction fees are only growing, and cybercurrency cannot always compete with other payment systems.

Myth 9: Blockchain Is a Convenient Place to Store Documents

This is not true. The cybercurrency stores information about the existence of a document, not the document itself.

Myth 10: Blockchain Is Open Access

Since electronic currency have many modifications, they are created both with open access for a wide range of users, and with limited access or completely closed.

Non-public blockchains are usually created to solve specific problems and belong to private individuals.