Whats the fuss with BlockChain ?

Vijay Muthu
Aug 9, 2017 · 6 min read

Our economy runs on contracts, transactions and records of them.They secure assets,bestow ownership and define organizational boundaries.They chronicle events and govern interactions, making them crucial to the functioning of organizations, communities and nations. And yet these critical tools and the bureaucracies formed to manage them have not kept up with a rapidly transforming global economy.

Enter BlockChain, the technology making headlines everywhere and promising quick solutions to just such problems. But what exactly is BlockChain ? A blockchain is a shared record of all transactions and related information for a particular entity. This shared record — a distributed ledger or database — is visible by all parties with permission to the record. What makes BlockChain special is the way in which it stores a fully copy of a record on every participating node and then encourages all those nodes to establish a consensus about its contents. The consensus among the nodes regarding integrity and contents of the distributed database is exactly why it’s often called a ‘distributed ledger’. There can be private blockchains (for ownership records or business transactions, for instance) and public blockchains (for public municipal data, real estate records etc.). And Yes, Blockchain can eliminate redundant functions, reduce operational expenses and increase opportunities to enhance the user experience.

The extraordinary potential of blockchain and something which makes this innovation truly path breaking is that it lets people and companies who operate in fraud prone environments or have no particular confidence in each other collaborate without having to go through a neutral central authority. Simply put, Blockchain is what The Economist calls the ultimate “trust machine”

Want to learn more about what blockchain is, how it works, and how you can get started building a blockchain network > Click to download the IBM ebook : BlockChain for Dummies

Which brings us to the big question , Are enterprise ready for Blockchain ?. A recent IBM Institute of Business Value - Global C Suite Study found that a third of C-level executives surveyed are either using or considering adopting blockchain technology in their organizations. These Executives plan to enable new transaction applications that could help establish trust, accountability and transparency among their organizations and partners. But who are these prime movers ( the study calls them explorers ) and which industry is rapidly embracing blockchain ? Well as would be natural, Companies in Industries like Banking & Financial Services currently experiencing massive digital disruption are the ones actively engaging in commercial blockchain projects and turning market uncertainty into opportunity. Interestingly 71% of business leaders currently using blockchain believe that industry consortia will play a key role in advancing the technology, suggesting widespread support for industry standards.

We have a Business Case, Eager Enterprises Ready to Adopt and Technology which seems to be maturing by the day ; Now all we need is an enterprise ready technology partner to get us going and that is what we are going to do now as we review three major players and how their choice of technology , strategy and operations may shape the future of this ecosystem

Think Blockchain and the first company that comes to mind is IBM with its rich history of innovation and probably one of the first companies that has been actively involved in developing blockchain solutions since 2014. In 2015, IBM was one of the many partners, including Accenture, Digital Asset Holdings ( which contributed the Hyperledger mark) , Cisco , Fujitsu, VMWare and many others, which helped found the Linux Foundation Hyperledger Project to promote blockchain solutions for enterprises. This collaboration is expected to help identify and address important features and currently missing requirements for a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers that can transform the way business transactions are conducted around the world. A few days back , seven Major European Banks selected IBM to bring Blockchain-Based Trade Finance to Small and Medium Enterprises. What particularly caught my eye was the closing sentence in the press release “ IBM has worked with more than 400 clients across financial services, supply chains, IoT, risk management, digital rights management and healthcare to implement blockchain applications”. Now 400 is an extremely big number considering that most of the companies are still trying to figure out their strategy around blockchain. Interested to see how IBM blockchain solutions and services can help your business apply the power of the distributed ledger blockchain technology. Click Here

Microsoft also started its blockchain journey in 2014 with Microsoft Research testing bitcoin. Interestingly, What Microsoft has done is open its Azure cloud computing platform to the ecosystem with a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) solution. Designed as a kind of ‘sandbox’ where partners can interact with different technologies, smart contracts etc in a low risk environment. Microsoft in February 2017 announced the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance , an open source blockchain alliance which provided provided enterprises with resilient secure systems and a robust controls environment. This is largely in line with the company’s strategy early on to align with the ethereum fabric from the word go. In May 2017 , Microsoft made a cryptic announcement of “ ..Support for additional Blockchain Protocols on Azure”. That said, With just a handful of user inputs and a simple single-click deployment through the Azure portal, you can provision a fully configured blockchain network topology in minutes, using Microsoft Azure compute, networking, and storage services across the globe. You can also get started with everything you need in a complete solution — from technical documentation to partner resources. Its an impressive portfolio , Click Here to visit Azure Marketplace

Both IBM & Microsoft have chosen their fabric and their strategies wisely and we may have to wait some time before we are able to compare their choices. But in the meanwhile a new set of players have entered the field, the blockchain consultancy , who offer everything from custom blockchain projects to help with designing your ico ( initial coin offering , more of that in the next post ). The third company on our watchlist RubixbyDeloitte has now released their first software platform, Rubix that allows applications to be built on top of blockchain infrastructure. RubixByDeloitte represents a growing tribe of pure play blockchain consultancies which appear fabric independent and who build blockchain applications for clients across several industries . These companies represent not just a source of value but also talent and seem to currently be the darling of investors. Rubix shows much promise but like many of its peers there is very little information to work on and hence opinion / judgement is reserved for now.

We cannot close discussion without talking about an emerging fourth and possibly the most powerful and disruptive of all in the BlockChain Ecosystem > the Dapps ; decentralized applications built on top of blockchain technology. Some dapps are built on their own blockchain while most are based on popular blockchains like bitcoin and ethereum. At the time of writing there were 622 dapss listed on the ethereum website which do everything from lock your electric bike , preserve intellectual property to some even dubious ventures around online gambling and other nefarious activities.

There seems to be a paradox of choice, the sheer multitude of which may overwhelm a new practitioner but sift through the media cacophony and you will find many a deserving business case and technology imperative to drive blockchain adoption in your organization. So Whats YOUR Plan ?


Hope you enjoyed reading my article ; I am new to medium and writing in more than 140 characters has been a new learning experience for me > I plan to focus on Digital Transformation & BlockChain with focus on financial services vertical ; Looking forward to connect with you more closely on twitter & linkedin > Please like , comment and share :)

Vijay Muthu

Written by

Tech Evangelist I BlockChain Enthusiast I Digital Transformation Specialist I @ekjactly I IBMer I My Opinions My Own :) You can blame for everything here >

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