DeutschI’m fascinated by the blockchain and in particular the potential it holds for decentralising and disintermediating business processes. Though certainly intriguing as well I’m not so much interested in the implications the blockchain and Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that’s built on the blockchain, have for payment and financial systems.
My area of interest rather is with how the blockchain enables us to rethink business processes that until now required some sort of third-party intermediary to establish trust between parties. Think of transactions in supply chain management, for instance. Currently, these require huge amounts of paperwork (bills of lading etc.) to ensure traceability and an uninterrupted chain trust. Companies like Provenance are working on products that leverage the blockchain to supply immutable proof that a transaction has happened at a specific time and that its contents haven’t been changed by either party afterwards.
These two TED talks by self-professed blockchain researcher Bettina Warburg and digital strategist Don Tapscott explain what blockchain technology is and how it can be used to transform business and society: