WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Blockchain is turning into a force of nature that’s changing the world and as the hype around the technology reaches fever pitch everyone wants in.

It’s always a great privilege to be invited to take part in Marketforce’s wonderful events and the Blockchain Summit in London was no different. Today’s event pulled together leading experts in Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for a day of content rich presentations and discussions, and as Blockchain continue to be hailed as one of the most significant innovations since the emergence of the internet the technology has a lot to live up to so it was no surprise that one of the key objectives of this summit was to see whether or not it could stand up to the hype.

With so much change taking place in the world it’s exciting to be involved with and see with my own two eyes how the blockchain and broader DLT ecosystem has literally exploded over the past few years as it increasingly becomes the technology of choice for organisations that are looking to use it to do everything from re-wire the world of finance and turn supply chain economics upside down, all the way across to using it as a platform to help pull men, women and children around the world out of poverty and hunger.

As for my role in all of this? Well, what else do you think I’d be asked to discuss – I was asked to shine a light, or several lights, on how Blockchain’s power to decentralise everything from processes and transactions, to industries will change the world.

I get all the easy jobs…

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During the summit it was my honour to mingle among the rising stars, for example, the guys from Ethereum and 11-FS, and entrepreneurs, from companies including Eight Roads, eMunie, now Radix, and Zonafide, who are all working hard to transform how industries collaborate, communicate and operate with one another, and change the status quo.

Never let anyone tell you that being an entrepreneur, or a pioneer, is easy, because it isn’t, and I’d like to propose a hat tip to every founder and entrepreneur out there.

Throughout the day we heard from the CEO of the SWIFT network and it’s always interesting to hear a CEO talk about how a new technology will make his company irrelevant – something that many CEO’s and executives should be increasingly mindful of in today’s rapidly changing world – and we also heard speakers from Barclays, HSBC, Nasdaq and R3 who seem to be everywhere at the moment who were discussing how they’ve been experimenting with the technology. As for production applications though well, an audience poll suggested that the first “proper” Blockchain production applications would start hitting the market in earnest from 2019 onwards, and it’s still clear that regulatory compliance remains one of the key issues to be resolved.