Blockchain Weekly — July 27
A big week for blockchain and money…and webinars
A few weeks ago, I took a break from Twitter (and most social media) to figure out a better way to share information, news, and opinions. I stayed with LinkedIn because I had good engagement with the stories and posts I shared there. However, the issue I have with LinkedIn is that it doesn’t provide a very good method for connecting and combining stories, they just show up randomly as I post them. There’s no way to really link or curate the posts to explain why I am posting them or how they fit together. Or even more crucially, why I think they fit together — how I see new developments in blockchain and technology evolving and why I think that matters.
So welcome to my weekly blockchain newsletter. My plan is to collect some of the stories I have posted on LinkedIn and Twitter throughout the previous week and put them into one place. I may add some commentary as I see fit, especially if I see stories that are particularly important (as we did last week).
I should point out that the stories, posts, and news I share are about “blockchain” and not just cryptocurrencies or financial services. Most of my research is focused on enterprise applications, but this week’s edition will be heavy on financial use cases, CBDCs and cryptocurrencies.
Last week was a big week for CBDC and digital money webinars. Folks from Accenture, EY and R3 all participated in very good webinars that deserve a listen. Links to those webinars are available below. (You may need to register to watch them, but that’s a small price to pay to listen to some very smart takes.)
· “Building CBDC — The Race to Reality” (from R3)
· “Digital Dollar Live” (from Accenture)
· “The Money Movement Episode #12 — Financial Privacy, Digital Currency and Stablecoin Payments” (from The Money Movment featuring Paul Brody from EY and Jerry Brito from The Coin Center)
If you’re interested in buying a central bank digital currency, the Bank of Lithuania has launched the world’s first central bank-backed digital currency: the LBCOIN. (Hat tip to Anthony Welfare.) This is more experiment than anything else, but it does represent an interesting step forward in the realization of CBDCs.
It was also a big week from a regulatory perspective. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a letter approving U.S. banks offering custody services for cryptocurrencies. The effects for financial institutions could be profound as they can now offer a new service. For institutional investors, the news is also important from a risk and compliance standpoint as it means traditional FIs can provide them with risk mitigation services. Thus, the news provides guidance from a regulatory perspective and shows a way forward for institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies.
(Here’s a video chat I did with Nick Holland from InfoRisk Today regarding the OCC letter.)
Another “quasi-regulatory” story from China where the state-backed Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) has integrated with six public blockchains including Ethereum. There is a lot to digest in that story, and I admit I’m still wrapping my head around the implications. At this point, it seems the big takeaway is how seriously and quickly China has moved forward with supporting blockchain infrastructure and technology. There is much more to consider here.
I guess you can add Visa and Mastercard’s announcements regarding their support for cryptocurrencies and digital currencies to “quasi-regulatory.”
According to Visa:
“We believe that digital currencies have the potential to extend the value of digital payments to a greater number of people and places. As such, we want to help shape and support the role they play in the future of money. We look forward to sharing more with you on this work in the months that follow.”
And from Mastercard:
“Mastercard is committed to applying its innovation, experience, and scale to emerging cryptocurrency and digital currency partners, building global ecosystems to modernize payments and transform the way people and businesses transact.”
These are significant statements of support for cryptocurrencies from two of the more important “third parties” that early bitcoin proselytizers said would be disintermediated by peer-to-peer digital currencies.
And finally, two non-monetary stories worth sharing:
The Tokyo Power Company will be using blockchain to trade surplus electricity. This is one of the very first use cases I was introduced to in 2014 or so, and one that made a lot of sense to me: blockchain forming the backbone of a peer-to-peer energy trading market. Thus, I’m curious to see how this will develop.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced HHS Protect, a platform to track and authenticate coronavirus data, is using blockchain to verify and trace data. There’s not much detail on the platform being used, but this is another one of those early use cases touted by blockchain advocates coming to fruition.
As I mentioned, this is the first effort using Medium to share stories and information. I’m sure I missed some items. I am also just figuring out how I want this newsletter to look — the layout, length, etc. If you have feedback, please feel free to share.
