Key Look at the Meaning and Value of Blockchain

A favorite commenter of mine talks about the Blockchain.  Who we worked with at IBM.   With some great additional references.  Recommended read and reference.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger

A collection of observations, news and resources on the changing nature of innovation, technology, leadership, and other subjects.

Blockchain - the Networked Ecosystem is the Business

A few weeks ago I attended two back-to-back blockchain events in Toronto, - the Blockchain Research Institute All-Member Summit followed by the inaugural Blockchain Revolution Global conference.  Both events included a number of excellent talks and panels.  One of the presentations I particularly enjoyed was Scaling Blockchain for the Enterprise: Emerging Business Models, by IBM’s Andrew Martin and Smitha Soman.  Their presentation was based on their recently published report Building your blockchain advantage.

Since it first came to light a decade ago as the public, distributed ledger for the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, people have struggled to understand what blockchain is all about and what it’s truly good for.  This is not unusual for potentially transformative technologies in their early stages, as was the case with the Internet, and is still the case with AI.  The key question is whether blockchain has the potential to become a truly transformative technology over time.  With few exceptions, the answer is positive.

The essence of blockchain, notes the report, is that the unit of competition is the networked ecosystem, no longer a single enterprise.  “As blockchain adoption continues to gather momentum, organizations must approach their blockchain strategies with the same rigor and commitment as any other new and transformative strategies.  They can’t just fall back on prototypes alone.  They need to build a robust business case for blockchain that includes a fair incentive model to attract all the partners required for the success of their networks.”

Based on the analysis of over 25 blockchain networks in various stages of production across multiple industries and geographies, the report recommends that a company’s blockchain journey should evolve along three distinct stages: in search of value, - establishing a minimum value ecosystem;  getting to scale - creating value for an overall industry; and designing for new markets, - creating entirely new markets and business models.  Let me briefly discuss each of these stages..... "