Blockchain
- by JohnHall
- 6 posts
-
A recent article in Barron’s describes Angus Champion de Crespigny, who spent ten years at professional services firm Ernst and Young and led the blockchain financial services division for years and was the subject of the article entitled “This Blockchain Believer Turned Heretic Is Still Bullish On Bitcoin,” as a “major skeptic.” Champion de Crespigny describes himself as an “experienced executive with 11 years in financial services, evangelist for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and a pragmatist for distributed and decentralized systems.
”Through the course of the interview, Champion de Crespigny speaks on his learned experience regarding the blockchain and how it transformed him from a “believer” to his present state as a pessimist regarding the blockchain and what it can actually do for businesses. The article is quick to note that the former employee does not speak for EY – in a statement to the publication they said blockchains “really can provide value.”On its website, Ernst & Young claims an even more positive outlook on blockchain:Blockchain technology has the potential to universally reshape the way business transacts across nearly every industry in the global economy.
They note that their clients collectively have more than 50 blockchain-enabled products around the world. And as we recently reported here at CCN, EY and several other firms of similar nature have an insatiable need for blockchain experts. EY also very recently launched its own blockchain product.But Angus Champion de Crespigny, who was down in the trenches with the blockchain, isn’t so positive on it.
He left college the very year Bitcoin was finishing up development and was a very junior associate at EY when the Bitcoin blockchain first launched. EY obviously had no blockchain division at that time, and Champion de Crespigny took an interest in Bitcoin well in advance of the company taking an interest. As he told Barron’s:I got very involved in the community then, which was quite small. […] I started advising on regulatory considerations, which are now kind of commonplace. Over time at EY, as more and more clients were asking about it, I was more and more the go-to guy. We eventually formed a group. So while I was actively working on it starting in 2014, the group was really formalized in 2015.
He says he had a very optimistic view of the blockchain before and after the formal creation of a job advising on the financial aspects of it. “It would be silly for me to say otherwise. My views were aligned with a lot of the common views at the time. ”Champion de Crespigny describes the problematic nature of a public blockchain as regards the needs of private enterprise. In his view, from his experience, the usual problem was that of coordination on standards for a given blockchain product.[…] if everyone agrees on the standards—then it would be a great setup. In reality the process to get there is just incredibly, incredibly complicated. Typically, as it evolves, you end up having to coordinate everyone. And if you can coordinate everyone, then there is often a better technology to use than a blockchain.
Legal Contracts Over Smart Contracts
The rules of advanced, permissioned blockchains become “very, very complicated” when multiple entities need to make demands of them. Champion de Crespigny says that usually a central trusted entity is resorted to anyway, thereby defeating the purpose of “trustless” ledgers. He points out a known fact: centralized distributed ledgers are faster, and the reason they are faster is “because it is all built around a central controlling entity.
” The obvious counter-argument is that the central entity in charge of a centralized distributed ledger becomes an attack vector. But Champion de Crespigny addresses this as well, saying:You want a blockchain when you don’t know who you can trust, because you don’t want any one party being able to arbitrarily change those things. The thing is that in the business world, we have legal contracts to do that.
Perhaps the most pessimistic statement comes next: “People are now being sold a dream that a blockchain is going to be easier to do all of this, and I just don’t think that’s accurate. ”Headline Chasers and A Lack of Added Value
Champion de Crispigny says that some businesses would go with a blockchain even when he bluntly told them it was unnecessary or less efficient than traditional options such as Oracle. Companies would reportedly want to explore the technology, and EY would help them do so.
Then there is the hype factor – plenty of companies have dabbled in blockchain just to enter the current news cycle, which hardly does a full spin without some mention of crypto, blockchain, et cetera. As he says, “I won’t comment on specific companies, but there is a certain amount of headline chasing.
”As to cryptocurrencies themselves and the persistent view of many in traditional finance – “blockchain not Bitcoin” – Champion de Crispigny believes that Westerners discount the valuable role cryptos can play in the lives of people who don’t necessarily trust their local fiat currency.
Venezuela comes to mind.But as far as the blockchain fully revolutionizing every sector of business, Champion de Crispigny just doesn’t see it. “I didn’t see where private blockchains could create any value to business,” he says.
Featured image from Shutterstock
Get Exclusive Crypto Analysis by Professional Traders and Investors on Hacked.com. Sign up now and get the first month for free. Click here.-
- 1
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst Whoever is disillusioned by the blockchain as this stage will find a lot of reasons why. Blockchain evangelising gave a lot of big hopes and a huge hype has been built around it, selling blockchain as THE revolution. We use to say that blockchain is a tool, together with robotics, AI, etc, which should be used to lead the transition to the new digital economy and society of the 4th IR. The hype being over, the emperor naked, is time to really build use cases and work on the rapidly coming change. Blockchain is here to stay until another better tool comes (maybe quantum technologies?).- 10 1 vote
- Reply
-
-
The EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum has built a new interactive map to highlight Europe’s crypto ecosystem. The map points startups and events in the sector, helping make blockchain enterprise exploration easier. Companies on other continents can also be mapped on the platform.
By
Viraj Shah
Europe’s premier blockchain organization, the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum has built a new interactive cryptocurrency map for the continent. The map points out crypto companies and highlights related events in an area.
It could help users find informationabout various startups and what they do. The map is open to users from around the world, who can filter results or mark startups in their respective continents.A Map for Detailed Crypto Exploration
The interactive map marks crypto and blockchain companies and provides relevant details of their objectives, purpose, year of establishment, etc. It also displays the website and other important information about the company.
Blockchain events will also be listed on the map for easy access to enthusiasts. Users can create filters in the search criteria to find companies or events in an area or find blockchain initiatives in a certain sector.
The Observatory designed the map with Europe in mind. However, it welcomes global users to add companies and events from other continents too. Currently, only European entities are available. The agency warns users that the map is crowdsourced, but entries are reviewed before submission.
Therefore, it will be vital for users to do their research before adding any companies.The Observatory Takes a Giant Leap With Multiple Projects
The interactive map project was first announced In March. The agency stated that they are:“Creating a public map of existing blockchain initiatives; regrouping key players, projects, and regional activities driving the ecosystem’s development. The end result will be a dynamic, geographical map, available on the Observatory and Forum website. Such map is highly valuable for both the European Union and other participants in the blockchain ecosystem.”
Every company submission takes 10 to 15 minutes, for which a user needs to fill a form. Event submissions are made through a separate form.The agency has been very active recently in educating citizens about blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
Apart from several workshops, it also announced a 90-minute ‘Ask Me Anything (AMA)’ session on its website to answer questions related to the blockchain, its use cases and its future in the world.
https://blokt.com/news/an-interactive-map-lets-you-explore-eus-cryptocurrency-startups
- By Admin
- 0 comments
- 10 likes
- Like
- Share
-
“The blockchain is the most consequential technology since the internet. The internet is programmable information. The blockchain is programmable scarcity.” — Balaji Srinivasan, CEO of 21.co
The internet is entering a second era that’s based on blockchain, this according to futurist Don Tapscotte. Blockchain will also disrupt every industry.
Venture capitalist Bill Tai believes that blockchain has the potential to birth the largest companies in the world. Dubai is working towards becoming the first government powered by blockchain. There are now cities that are using blockchain to issue passports.
I recently interviewed Balaji Srinivasan, CEO of 21.co that is using blockchain to revolutionize sales and marketing. Srinivasan recently noted that blockchain is the internet of money. “With the blockchain, everything that was scarce now becomes programmable.
That means cash, commodities, currencies, stocks, bonds—everything in finance is going to be transformed, and aspects of finance baked into everything else. If you deal with information, you need the internet. If you deal with money, you need to deal with blockchains. — Balaji Srinivasan
What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is a type of data structure that’s used to create a digital ledger of transactions and share it among a distributed network of computers. The distribution network could include smart phones, tablets, cloud-based resources or on-premises compute nodes.
Imagine a universal digital ledger that helps shape how you transact with other individuals or entities all in a secure and anonymous fashion. A key outgrowth of the ledger is the idea of “smart contracts”, which “provide security superior to traditional contract law and reduce other transaction costs associated with contracting”.
WEFHow a blockchain worksHere is a short primer video from MIT Technology Review on blockchain:
To learn more about Blockchain in the healthcare industry, I worked with Marjorie Tan-Thronson, Principal Enterprise Architect at Salesforce.
Marjorie is a former IBM solutions architect, now at Salesforce, responsible for lending her expertise in enterprise architecture to lead rapid prototyping and development of solutions in the emerging technologies space, aimed at accelerating digital business transformation and implementation and integration of new technologies.
Blockchain Is Changing the Healthcare and Life Science IndustryGovernment and states domestically and globally have started to explore the Blockchain technology for streamlining back-office paper trails and business operations.
In 2007, the government of Estonia began a nationwide implementation of a version of Blockchain to secure all Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in the country running on the Guardtime Blockchain (specializing in “Keyless Signature Infrastructure – KSI) to authenticate on a massive scale. Estonia has virtually eliminated the need to have a Health Information Exchange (HIE), all-payer claims database, or Electronic Medical Records (EMRs).
This has made the entire population much more “health smart” and built a huge foundation of trust for accessing patient records. In 2015, they started streamlining driver license renewals with over 80,000 medical certificates being forwarded to its Road Administration Agency.
On May 10, 2016, the Estonian and Finnish Prime Ministers signed a joint declaration to allow patient data exchange, cross-border e-services and e-prescriptions.
Hospitals can have as many as 20 different ways to enter a simple date-of-birth for a patient. Blockchain can tie patients to their data, rather than identity.
According to Deloitte, the healthcare industry is planning the most aggressive deployments of blockchain, with 35 percent of health and life sciences planning to deploy by 2018. Deloitte found that 28 percent of respondents across all industries said they’d already invested $5 million or more, while 10 percent have invested $10 million or more in blockchain.
The proof-of-work scheme is also making inroads for clinical trials where the Blockchain verification can help increase trust, integrity in clinical research publication and restore some of the tarnished reputation from the clinical research community. Clinicians applaud the decentralized ledger that allows for a simpler, more efficient and cheaper way to share peer-reviewed research.
According to a Deloitte study, blockchain is an enabler of nationwide interoperability. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology issued a shared nationwide interoperability roadmap, which defines critical policy and technical components needed for nationwide interoperability, including:
1. Ubiquitous, secure network infrastructure,
2. Verifiable identity and authentication of all participant, and 3. Consistent representation of authorization to access electronic health information, and several other requirements.
Summary of Blockchain opportunities Across Markets- Broader awareness of new clinical studies, disease prevention and genome strains. This could start with grants to help researchers develop a repository to support clinical trials especially for diseases that have no cure currently.
- Donors in the network can choose the research cause to benefit further advancement, gain control of the data sharing process and be rewarded
- Rewards as part of the Blockchain contribution generates the emergence of a new shared economy (“Shareconomies”) where members in the network benefit from being “Claimless”
- New treatments and drug discovery to reach FDA approvals is faster because the sampling pool of data is much more diverse, focused and accessible
- Duplication of work and fraud is minimized as consensus of parties in the network embodies trust in the network
- Smart contracts allow for logic to be enforced on top of the Blockchain transaction. This means rules can be executed in terms of how the transactions are carried out as per the contract
FORBES
Blockchain technology - promising use cases for healthcare industryBlockchain Disruption in Healthcare
Blockchain technology is particularly helpful to streamline processes, minimize fraud, lower operational costs, eliminate duplication of work and generate new ways to integrate in a sharing-based economy.
Salesforce has an excellent foundation to help capture and manage a patient’s profile, their preferences, visibility to the patient’s entire care-giver(s), what it takes to engage and stay connected with the care-giver(s), what interests lies in the community that they are a part of and how to cultivate the entire patient journey.
Let’s imagine Samantha is part of the Blockchain for a new chronic arthritis research program and is sharing her progress with a clinical institution about a new type of pain management drug. Samantha learns from the network that they are looking for donors to share their latest experiences with the latest advances in arthritic care.
She decides to communicate the new program within the “Salesforce Arthritis Care Community” to expand her outreach to other patients who are also looking at advances in pain care.
Samantha remembers another community member, Mark (who shares similar interests about the program), is curious as to how he can donate to science and at the same time, learn more about the new clinical trials benefiting from his contribution.
Patients have minimal or no trace-ability of the types of research benefiting their contribution. With Oprah’s recent...continue reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/blockchain-innovation-in-healthcare-and-life-sciences_us_59c9129...- By Admin
- 0 comments
- 1 like
- Like
- Share
-
Nuco, a startup founded by a group of former Deloitte employees, has released a new white paper detailing its latest blockchain initiative.
Dubbed Aion, the proposed technology aims to connect different blockchains, including private networks operated by enterprises. The idea is that, as more companies turn to the technology for a variety of applications, there will need to be a public layer through which these future networks can communicate – and that's where Aion comes in.
As the white paper outlines, Aion would act as a kind of "bridge" between those networks, serving as "a mechanism to transfer data and value securely between them." Aion, as a public blockchain, will utilize a token aimed at incentivizing the various parties involved in both validating transactions and putting up the resources to transact between the different networks.
The paper explains:"The AION 1 itself can be used to deploy decentralized applications on, as well as will maintain a public record of transaction between bridges. Essentially, facilitating a network that is to blockchains what the internet is to computers."
Aion's public nature is notable among enterprise-facing solutions on the market today, which have tended toward private, permissioned networks in which only approved parties can participate. Aion's "Connecting Network", according to the paper, would link both private and public networks alike.
Nuco also details a built-in governance structure that functions by way of a voting system, with the aim of .... continue reading:
http://www.coindesk.com/nuco-builds-tokenized-blockchain-bridge-enterprise-applications/- By Admin
- 0 comments
- 3 likes
- Like
- Share
-
Stable Currency
Tether converts cash into digital currency, to anchor or tether the value to the price of national currencies like the US dollar, the Euro, and the Yen.100% Backed
Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves. So 1 USD₮ is always equivalent to 1 USD.Blockchain Technology
The Tether platform is built on the Bitcoin blockchain, the most secure open ledger in existence today...
Learn more:
https://tether.to/
- By Admin
- 0 comments
- 0 likes
- Like
- Share
-
SAFE Network Introduction Video
Watch this video for an introductory overview of the network. Find out why this technology is so important, the problems it solves, and discover many of the network's unique features.A secure home for all your data
The SAFE Network is soon to provide access to a world of exciting apps where the security of your data is put above all else. In time, downloading the free SAFE software will provide access to: messaging, apps, email, social networks, data storage, video conferencing, and much more....
Learn more:
https://maidsafe.net/
- By Admin
- 0 comments
- 2 likes
- Like
- Share