Don Tapscott: “We Need Microsurgery on This New Economy” | News | Cointelegraph

January 30, 2018

But you know, if you’re doing an ICO and the token represents a share in the company that’s called a security, it should fall under securities legislation. But we need microsurgery on this new economy. We don’t need to bring a chainsaw to it. This would be one of the three most important rate determining factors in terms of what countries emerge not just with the Blockchain industry, but with the whole new innovation economy. Do governments do the right thing and implement sensible legislation or did they mess it up?

The supply chain industry globally is a $64 trillion industry and supply chains are going to move to Blockchain. You can see that with Foxconn doing this now, we’ve done a case on that. On the Walmart food sale they use Blockchain for food safety. The biggest supply chain in the world ever is the ‘One Belt One Road’ project linking Hong Kong and Rotterdam. All the trade and finance and a lot of the supply apps on that are being done via Blockchain.

Blockchain is perfect for situations where you have a buyer and a seller and escrow agent, and governments, and various shippers, and tax authorities and so on. Instead of passing pieces of paper and faxing, and emails and so on, they have a single shared network state where they can all instantly see what’s going on. It turns that supply chain into something we call an asset chain. And ultimately, this thing becomes cognitive. It really becomes a new cognitive computer. That’s where the supply chain will be.

Source: Don Tapscott: “We Need Microsurgery on This New Economy” | News | Cointelegraph | News | Cointelegraph, January 29, 2018

Thanks, Ahmed!

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Smart Contracts: Should you? Can you? Will you? Imagine the possibilities (the easy part). Don’t let the behind the scene complexities discourage you | IBM | LinkedIn

January 25, 2018

What should be in a CIO’s IT strategic plan?

Bitcoin emerged in 2009 as a revolutionary way to transfer value without a third-party intermediary like a bank. Blockchain technology, in turn, is gaining attention for its promise to enable value and asset transfer across a wide range of industries and use cases — and its potential to disintermediate financial institutions, remittance companies and lots of other transactional middleman businesses. Smart contracts, meanwhile, work hand-in-hand with blockchain technology and have the potential to automate — and also disrupt — processes in many industries. 

Source: Smart Contracts: Should you? Can you?Will you? Imagine the possibilities (the easy part). Don’t let the behind the scene complexities discourage you | IBM | LinkedIn, Hans Casteels, January 24, 2018

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Smart Contracts: Blockchain is the thing that enables the thing | IBM | LinkedIn

January 25, 2018

Blockchain is not a technology that will enable one organisation to come up with a new category killer product or process that will give it an advantage over its rivals. Rather, its success “will require co-operation among market participants, regulators and technologists”. The greater the number of businesses around the table, the greater blockchains impact will be.

Source: Smart Contracts: Blockchain is the thing that enables the thing | IBM | LinkedIn, Hans Casteels, January 22, 2018

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Canada trialing use of Ethereum blockchain to enhance transparency in govt funding – National | Globalnews.ca

January 22, 2018

Every time the NRC gives a grant to a company or individual, it shares that information with Bitaccess, which stores the data on the secure and tamper-proof Ethereum blockchain. Individual grant information is then posted online.

Canadians can peruse grant information by monetary value, date, recipient and region. They can also verify grant information by clicking on the Transaction ID link, which takes them to the unique transaction listing on the online Ethereum transaction database Etherscan.io.

As of Saturday, Jan. 20, the biggest grant listed on the database was an $11,849,901 contribution to an industry R&D project at Ryerson University.

In November, Buterin tweeted out a poll asking his half a million followers to vote on which institutions they would most like to see adopt blockchain storage.

With 44 per cent of the vote, the “government” option easily won out.

Source: Canada trialing use of Ethereum blockchain to enhance transparency in govt funding – National | Globalnews.ca, Rahul Kalvapalle, January 20, 2018

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Blockchain in the Boardroom: Toward Enterprise Deployment – CoinDesk

January 17, 2018

For many enterprises, the journey starts with blockchain education and strategic thinking, and will certainly also result in new business models and collaborations. When it comes to blockchain, we will not know with certainty how the future state of the technology will look.

The best recommendation is to keep moving, learning, and testing out business models. In the midst of this technology paradigm shift, it’s ok to think really big – in fact, it’s imperative.

Source: Blockchain in the Boardroom: Toward Enterprise Deployment – CoinDesk, Iliana Oris Valiente, January 15, 2018

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A Legal Renaissance, Blockchain Style – CoinDesk

January 16, 2018

Maybe it makes sense that the old, siloed law firm models need to evolve, as well.

We are experiencing a technological tidal wave of new business models and novel legal questions, and regulators, market participants and lawyers all are trying to navigate the current.  The entire blockchain ecosystem arguably benefits when lawyers focus some of their energies outward, beyond their individual firms – advancing legal discussion and theory and grappling together to interpret and apply legal frameworks – rather than solely inward.

Source: A Legal Renaissance, Blockchain Style – CoinDesk, Joshua Ashley Klayman Kuzar, January 7, 2018

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Blockchain reinvents the consumer experience | IBM

January 16, 2018

Executive summary

The IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed executives from 203 organizations in the consumer industry – which includes both retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) organizations – from 16 countries. We found that 7 percent expect to have a commercial blockchain solution at scale in 2018. Even more are working with and investing in blockchain now – a total of 18 percent.

These “First Movers” expect blockchains to take down the frictions that hold them back. Three-quarters of them have their eyes on new markets, while 69 percent expect to strip away information risks and 64 percent to better navigate the regulatory environment.

First Movers see broad benefits from blockchains across six areas: product safety and authenticity, supply chain optimization, finance, operational processes, promotional strategy management, and customer engagement and co-creation. In each case, they don’t just expect targeted business benefits, such as time and cost savings or risk reduction, but the opportunity to create new business models or disrupt the industry. Ultimately, no matter where they start, they aim to expand new blockchain solutions to cover virtually every aspect of their value chains.

First Movers recognize that the opportunity introduced by blockchain covers both the supply side of their businesses and customer-facing interactions. They can use blockchain to dynamically reconfigure networks for real-time optimization or, in collaboration with other institutions, to gain deeper insights into their consumers. They can better assure the safety and quality of goods and also establish new markets, enabling them to transform the way they see and do business.

Source: Blockchain reinvents the consumer experience | IBM

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Canadian Spy Agency CSIS Labels Blockchain a ‘Mega Trend’

January 16, 2018

CSIS expressed a view that, if approached correctly, blockchain could become the “plumbing” for all transaction-based systems. This would include government services, healthcare records, and real estate.

This presents a huge opportunity for blockchain, as it shows that government agencies want to engage with its underlying mechanisms. We’ve grown accustomed to companies having perspectives on the blockchain, but adding more government agencies into the mix is a strong signal.

CSIS expects technology-minded millennials to play a key part in the upcoming social, political and technological disruption in society. Further, the agency expects that millennials could be the conductors for the next industrial revolution and a major economic boom.

Source: Canadian Spy Agency CSIS Labels Blockchain a ‘Mega Trend’, Melanie Clay, January 15, 2018

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Enterprises Have Extremely High Hopes For Blockchain Technology

January 10, 2018

This is the key takeaway from a study of 3,000 executives, conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, which looked at the enterprise potential of blockchain, a distributed global ledger or database that facilitates and tracks “smart contracts” between people, systems and organizations. Blockchain has no single owner or centralized hub, and it has potential to enable direct and secure management of engagements with customers and partners over the Internet, without the need for third parties or intermediaries.Overall, the survey finds, 33% of executives are already “actively engaged” or are “considering” using blockchain. A handful, 8%, are among those already working with the technology approach. Among members of the 33% using or considering blockchain, 100% expect it to support their enterprise strategy in some way. The vast majority, 78%, are investing in blockchain in hopes of responding to disruptions in their markets — financial shifts or developing new business model. Close to two-thirds see it as a way to increase the transparency of their transactions.

Source: Enterprises Have Extremely High Hopes For Blockchain Technology, Joe McKendrick, May 22, 2017

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