Page 16 - CSA Celebrity Speakers | CSA Speaker Bulletin January 2016
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TECHNOLOGY

 LEARNING TO LOVE
 THE BLOCKCHAIN

      Peter Vessenes is the CEO of CoinLab Inc. and Founder of the Bitcoin
      Foundation. He spoke to us recently to give us his views on what 2016
      will hold for businesses, especially in the context of the blockchain.

2016 is the year of the blockchain        interesting are putting real estate       or hundreds of other functions will
        for most enterprise executives.   property titles onto blockchains          feel the impact by 2018. Whether you
        It’s time to have a strategy for  (Honduras), and putting AML/KYC           believe disruption should be managed,
blockchains, and decision makers          (Anti-money laundering / Know Your        embraced or squashed, just getting
need information and perspective          Customer) data onto a blockchain          information and perspective is the
about the risks and opportunities.        for various partners to share. Media      first step for forming the strategies
                                          companies are experimenting               your team and company need to
What is the blockchain? The               with tracking royalties on custom         thrive.
blockchain isn’t any one computer         blockchains, allowing auditability and
program or database - it’s a set of       instant payment to all rights holders.    What’s next with blockchains and the
new technologies with some common                                                   enterprise? With all the excitement, I
themes. Most often, blockchain            Further afield, gambling bookmakers       have some ideas - and I bet you do as
technology is used to take internal       and prop-bet markets are utilizing        well. n
data or an internal process and safely    blockchain technology to create
put it outside the organization so that   transparent gambling and prediction            WHAT IS IT REALLY?
more partners can access it.              services. Venture capitalists and
                                          private equity firms are pouring                A blockchain is like a database
The first use of blockchain technology    hundreds of millions of dollars into            but it has some powerful extra
- Bitcoin - launched in 2009 and is       investments as the industry shows               features:
now a bona-fide digital currency with     signs of incredible growth ahead.               1. Immutable history of all
billions of dollars in value. In 2014,    Almost any data that would be stored            data ( data can never be
banks worldwide started trying to         inside a corporate data center in 2010          erased or altered once it’s
adapt the Bitcoin technology to their     may be pulled out of the organization           committed to the chain).
own needs. Almost all global banks        and placed on a blockchain, whether             2. Digital Signature support
have multiple blockchain projects         private or public in the next few years.        through cryptography
today. Basic projects include putting                                                     (identities can be validated by
stocks and bonds onto blockchains -       Blockchains are highly disruptive               any user of the chain).
threatening to disrupt the settlement     technologies - Bitcoin’s stored value           3. Cryptography enforces only
and clearing industries - and replacing   exceeds that of many small nations’             ‘safe’ and allowed interactions
existing wire transfer and settlement     national currencies 6 years after               with the data (untrusted
mechanisms, threatening huge              launch. Similar shifts will be occurring        parties can share and use the
near-monopoly players like Visa or        for some financial institutions in              data as they choose).
American Express.                         the next year, and any company
More sophisticated projects are           that deals with big data, customer
under way as well; some of the most       information, international commerce

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