Category: distributed ledgers

Avoiding blockchain for blockchain’s sake: Three real use case criteria

Blockchain use case funnel 2016-17
~ antonylewis2015 ~ 3 Comments

2016 was the year of creating frameworks and filters to determine if a business problem was worthy of a blockchain-based solution.  Often, the frameworks would declare inappropriate potential use cases as ripe for blockchaining, as the frameworks were often designed by blockchain vendors or consultants to let as much through as possible.  However, many of the proofs of concepts built in 2016-17 have not become industrial solutions.  Why?

Two main reasons are:

  1. The technology didn’t meet the requirements of the use case
  2. The use cases themselves were selected badly

This post discusses what went wrong with use case selection, and presents two new and better questions for use case selection.

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Blockchains and cyberwar: Why the next wave of interbank settlement systems will be decentralised

~ antonylewis2015 ~ Leave a comment

Currently a number of central banks around the world are exploring two things:

  1. A decentralised interbank payment system
  2. A central bank digital currency

Though often conflated, these are slightly different concepts.  You can decentralise your interbank payment systems without allowing the public to have digital access to the central bank’s balance sheet, and vice versa.

This short post is about the first set of experiments: decentralising the interbank payment systems.

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A gentle introduction to self-sovereign identity

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 7 Comments

In May 2017, the Indian Centre for Internet and Society think tank published a report detailing the ways in which India’s national identity database (Aadhaar) is leaking potentially compromising personal information. The information relates to over 130 million Indian nationals.  The leaks create a great opportunity for financial fraud, and cause irreversible harm to the privacy of the individuals concerned.

It is clear that the central identity repository model has deficiencies.  This post describes a new paradigm for managing our digital identities: se
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Three common misconceptions about smart contracts

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 2 Comments

There is a lot of misleading commentary about smart contracts, leading to confusion about what they are and what they can do. Here are three of the most common myths that I have noticed. This builds on a previous piece, a gentle introduction to smart contracts.

Myth: Smart contracts are self-executing bits of code

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Distributed ledgers: “Confirm-as-you-go”

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 1 Comment

Following on from the “Blockchain is a solution looking for a problem” narrative of 2016, distributed ledger technology has evolved.

Distributed ledgers – databases with shared control over what and how data is added – can be seen a strategic solution to the “reconciliation” workaround that we have had to put up with until now. This strategic solution is applicable to all industries, not just financial services.

Distributed ledgers: "Confirm-as-you-go"

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Yes, but what’s new with distributed ledgers?

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 1 Comment

This short post is inspired by a conversation I had recently with a couple of finance professors from top business schools who had some questions about blockchains.

Prof A explained that he had heard all the fuss about blockchains but was unsure whether it was revolutionary or evolutionary (I think the word disruptive was also used). I have written about disruption in Fintech and the Evolutionary vs Revolutionary aspects of distributed ledgers before (hint: it depends, it’s both, and yes, perhaps).

Then he asked, “Yes, but is there anything new?”

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Distributed Ledgers: Shared control, not shared data

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 1 Comment

In the context of distributed ledgers, I have noticed that many commentators and consultants confuse shared control of data with the sharing of data itself. The difference is crucial, and this common simplification misses the most important aspect of distributed ledgers.

In this post I discuss three ideas:

  1. Sharing of data vs shared control of data
  2. Control of data by rules vs by power
  3. Enforcement of rules by participants

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