Over the past few years, blockchain has gone from being a nascent innovation to a market-changing technology that's being widely employed by businesses everywhere for a diverse set of purposes. Despite the increase in blockchain's importance to the economy, however, the public hasn't really caught up on just how big blockchain is going to get. In the near-future, we'll witness blockchain continue its slow, steady revolution of the marketplace as it ingrains itself further and further into our everyday lives.

Here's why blockchain is bigger than the internet, and why it's set to be one of the most important innovations of the 21st century.

The blockchain revolution is well underway

Many critics continue to doubt the ability of blockchain to change the world, yet its proponents and early investors in the technology already understand that the blockchain revolution is well underway and has already sizable impacted the market. Venture capitalist and crypto-enthusiasts Patrick Byrne of Overstock even recently drew sizable headlines with his ambitious claims that blockchain is set to be bigger than the internet and the Gutenberg press. This lofty goal may seem outrageous to some, but it's meant to express just how seriously blockchain is being taken by a wide array of business interests.

A number of industry leaders in the banking sector have demonstrated a keen interest in blockchain's potential to disrupt the world of finance, for instance. JPMorgan is so impressed by recent developments in blockchain that it's investing in its own cryptocurrency, which we're going to be seeing more and more of as time goes on. Even massive companies in the tech scene, such as Facebook, are reportedly interested in releasing their own digital currencies in an effort to gain greater financial independence. While digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum were widely mocked when they originally debuted on the market, their subsequent durability has convinced many investors that cryptocurrencies have a sounder future than many imagined.

Blockchain technology isn't just going to eclipse many other recent innovations because of its ability to supercharge the cryptocurrency revolution, however. As impressive as the rise of Bitcoin and other digital tokens have been, blockchain will largely impact our economy in other ways, too, including by changing the nature of encryption as we know it today. One of the reason that blockchain tech has already been vacuumed up by so many businesses is that it's naturally encrypted and decentralized, which makes it harder to abuse than other tech currently relied upon by many companies.

Businesses are going all in on blockchain

The predominant reason we can be confident that blockchain is going to keep growing and growing in the near-future is that businesses everywhere are going all in on the technology as more people look to buy Bitcoin. From the banking and financial sector to immense social media platforms like Facebook, blockchain is finding a way to disrupt nearly every industry you can imagine. A wide range of industrial applications even makes blockchain useful in such areas as the auto industry, where a number of ambitious companies have already embarked on a quest to harness this innovation to gain a greater share of the market.

As one recent report from Deloitte points out, the automakers of the future are expected to offer highly personalized and deeply technical experiences to their forthcoming customers. Many companies are looking at the current tech landscape in the auto industry and finding existing innovations insufficient for meeting this vision of the future - to really bring about the next generation of automobiles, they feel they need access to blockchain technology. Blockchain's real-time, reliable, and transparent nature make it an excellent tool for many existing companies and aspiring startups alike to harness in their effort to beat out the competition.

The reason that blockchain is becoming so widely employed in the auto industry is the same reason it has a huge future in nearly every economic sector; where there's data to be analyzed, blockchain applications can step in and make things easier for businesses and customers alike. The 21st century is going to be the era of data - everyone and everything is going to be equipped with gadgets or sensors that end up churning out huge troves of information every day. In order to comprehend this mammoth sum of data, businesses are going to need blockchain-based applications to comb through the noise in pursuit of valuable but rare consumer insights.

Don't believe the talk that blockchain is all hype - there's plenty of evidence that the technology is already disrupting a wide array of industries and that it's set to keep changing our market in the near-future. Proponents and investors in blockchain tech are clearly having the last laugh. The rise of cryptocurrencies and the increasing reliance in industrial areas on blockchain makes it quite clear that this technology is becoming bigger than nearly anything that's come before it.