I read an interesting article today about some of the activities occurring at Davos this week. Robert Shiller made some interesting comments (https://qz.com/1189516/robert-shiller-said-at-the-wef-in-davos-that-bitcoin-is-characterized-by-speculation/ ) – however mostly centered around bitcoin itself. For sure – it has been a bumpy ride – and outside of hype and other reasons for the sudden interest – at its core we are talking about validations of blockchain and its ability to ‘free’ information – whilst protecting it and giving owners control.
Looks like there were over a dozen specific sessions on blockchain itself – which I find quite interesting considering this topic made agendas a few years back anywhere. More interesting to me from a product and compliance side was the joint announcement between Microsoft, Accenture and Hyperledger for the ID2020 Alliance (https://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-hyperledger-un-join-blockchain-identity-initiative/ ). Much more to come from this group – and I expect ‘competing’ groups to crop up with different value propositions, etc.
More interesting to us, is the ‘blockchain’ conversation is starting to mature and get ‘big enough’ – that is – having some large and lofty goals and encompassing truly needed user communities with capabilities that help on a very large scale (call it – planet-wide). In this example, (which I didn’t know), over 1.1 billion people can not prove their identity – which as we know affects everything from immigration, work, safety, healthcare and more.
Significant, game changing, mature. It will be interesting!