Blockchain

I spent a day facilitating a series of roundtable discussions focused upon distributed ledger technologies (DLT). I realised that there’s a lot of confusion around the subject. Hell, even I’m confused most of the time even after dedicating hours to the subject. When is a distributed ledger needed? What’s the …

I still talk a lot about blockchain, distributed ledgers, cryptocurrencies and more, but often feel it’s falling on deaf ears. The price of bitcoin flies around in the $7,000 a coin bracket, having risen from a tenth of that amount a year ago; and many people talk about blockchain and …

I was thinking about this question of how to regulate global technology platforms that don’t recognise national boundaries, mainly in the context of crypto and digital currencies. How can you regulate a global currency that has no view of state or national laws? Obviously, you can only regulate it when …

Wrapping up thoughts on #Money2020, the Vegas show is by far the biggest of this monster event organising company. I’m guessing there were around 15,000 folks there this year, and everything but everything was being covered: AI, machine learning, mobile wallets, core banking, distributed ledger, blockchain, cryptocurrencies and just about …

I’m running around the different areas of #Money2020, meeting folks, seeing exhibit demos, hearing track streams and listening to plenary keynotes. To be honest, the keynotes here are just product pitches so I spend most of my time in the track streams, where real dialogue occurs. The major stream that …

Another great #Money2020 day, and this one spent mainly in the blockchain stream. Adam Lutwin, CEO of Chain who I referred to recently, kicked off the day with a beginners guide to the crypto world. It was real good. That was followed by a panel moderated by Marc Hochstein, former …

Today, I received a guest post from David Demar, cryptocurrency disciple, author and a writer for NoStop.net. I really liked what he sent through and thought it worth a share as it complements quite a bit of what I’ve covered in the last week.  Enjoy! Preparing for the Coming Crypto Revolution …

Continuing yesterday’s discussions about a big bank’s conference, I was intrigued at how often the subject of cryptocurrencies and bitcoin came up. But there again, it’s a topical thing at the moment with the price of bitcoins surging past the $4,000 mark and Goldman Sachs going against JP Morgan, and saying that …

It’s been an interesting few weeks, watching bitcoin’s rollercoaster ride as it rises to valuations over $4,000 and then dives to almost $2,000 before rising again to near $6,000. This is for an asset that just a year ago you could have purchased for a few hundred dollars. The rise …

I was asked to explain what I meant by haven’t central bankers realised that democratised trust is in the technologies and code? when I blogged about the regulator’s views on bitcoin the other day. I wasn’t going to answer, but then have been prompted to do so after attending the …

I just got this commentary from a banker and thought it worth sharing … Bitcoin – Desperately seeking Satoshi Nakamoto By John Wyn-Evans, Head of Investment Strategy at Investec Wealth & Investment All the ingredients for life on earth were available in the primordial soup, but it took some unknown …

As part of the blockchain conference, I chaired a session with some central bankers talking about their views on distributed ledger technologies. These central banks have run trials and are thinking about it, but none of them are particularly big on blockchain right now. As mentioned on Friday, they see …

I was chairing a conference on blockchain and distributed ledgers the other day. The audience were a mixture of start-ups and banks, and the speakers were talking about how they viewed the world of distributed ledger developments. Many of the banks had successfully complete proofs of concept projects and were …

When I fly with British Airways, which I try to avoid these days thanks to the fatuous actions of their lame duck CEO, then I’ll always check out the latest edition of Business Life. It’s their upmarket magazine for business fliers, and usually hits the right note. So imagine my …

There’s so much rubbish being written about cryptocurrencies, ICOs, blockchain and shared ledgers at the moment that I’m almost tempted to give up on it all. 1 in 10 ICOs is a scam, blockchain is not the same thing as a shared ledger, and no, I can’t tell you if …