Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Crypto

Bitcoin is a Wild West … when the dust settles, will it still be around?

Bitcoin has gone from the leading light for the future to a flaky, shaky infrastructure.  This is the result of the Mt.Gox meltdown, along with other exchanges since.  In other words, the essence of bitcoin – the blockchain and the algorithms – are all perfectly fine and make eminent sense.  The issue is that the…

Bitcoin is a Wild West … when the dust settles, will it still be around?

Bitcoin has gone from the leading light for the future to a flaky, shaky infrastructure.  This is the result of the Mt.Gox meltdown, along with other exchanges since.  In other words, the essence of bitcoin – the blockchain and the algorithms – are all perfectly fine and make eminent sense.  The issue is that the…

That weird and wonderful thing called bitcoin

I keep getting into debates about bitcoin and when banks should take notice of bitcoin. C’mon.  If a bank hasn’t noticed bitcoin yet, then they must be a bank completely uninterested in banking strategies. bitcoin is important, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. In fact, it is fairly irritating. It is irritating because bitcoin…

Bitcoin_Ecosystem_1170

Why all banks will gamify over time

It's obvious that gamification is a game changer – apologies for the pun. Gamification is huge. The games industry is bigger than the movies these days, with Call of Duty, Halo and World of Warcraft, leading the charge but we must not forget Angry Birds, Candy Crush and the range and reach of Flappy Bird….

Angry birds theme park

The threat to banks is not Google or Amazon but …

What amazes me about the banking system is that the banking system does not believe it needs to change. It does not believe it is being disrupted by technology. It is dismissive of many new start-ups and innovators. And it points to past performance for the reasons why. There has been no major disruption in…

Bitcoin

When bitcoin becomes mainstream, it will look just like real money

I find it interesting to see so many people believing that bitcoin is dead because MTGox died. Listen: MTGox was a flaky, insecure trading platform for Bitcoins, but it isn’t bitcoin. MTGox was killed by a couple of bots called Willy and Markus, that’s how flaky MTGox was. However, the death of MTGox along with…

Bitcoin legality

We are not Borg, we are Human and dancing to a different tune

Building to the theme of the divide between the old world of finance and the new, and why (some) banks aren't fit for the 21st century, brings a few more points to mind, in particular about control and centralisation. Banks were built as control freaks. They need to own the complete end-to-end cycle of everything….

Old world

We are not Borg, we are Human and dancing to a different tune

Building to the theme of the divide between the old world of finance and the new, and why (some) banks aren't fit for the 21st century, brings a few more points to mind, in particular about control and centralisation. Banks were built as control freaks. They need to own the complete end-to-end cycle of everything….

Old world

Heidi Miller, Bitcoin and fitness for purpose

Building on yesterday’s theme about how a cheque from Canada has taken six weeks to process and had significant processing charges taken from the deposit as a result, reminds me of Heidi Miller’s speech from SIBOS 2004, which is still talked about today. What did Heidi say that was so compelling? She basically asked why…

Heidi Miller, Bitcoin and fitness for purpose

Building on yesterday’s theme about how a cheque from Canada has taken six weeks to process and had significant processing charges taken from the deposit as a result, reminds me of Heidi Miller’s speech from SIBOS 2004, which is still talked about today. What did Heidi say that was so compelling? She basically asked why…

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