Estonia announces plans to create its own national cryptocurrency
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of money is digital, and more countries around the world are drawing up plans to develop and deploy their own national cryptocurrencies, signalling the demise of the cash society and ushering in a new era of government led transparency and control. Estonia...
Building a blockchain based Flash Organisation; by Ken Bodnar
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In the future work, and jobs, will be more fluid than they are today, driven by the rise of globalisation, hyper-connectivity and the “Gig economy” but noone has so far managed to create a Flash Organisation that works, one day though that will change… ...
Australian researchers claim a blockchain record of 440,000 transactions per second
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchains relatively low transaction speeds could stop it from reaching its full potential, but now a research group from USYD claim to have smashed the performance barrier that could have held it back. Researchers at Australia’s University of Sydney (USYD) announced this week that...
China’s cashless future, PBoC gets ready to launch world’s first national cryptocurrency
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The use of cash in society is falling and some of the world’s largest central banks are creating new cryptocurrencies and planning for a future without cash. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my...
A secret trader just made over $200 million in a month trading Ethereum
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many speculate that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are riding bubbles that are about to pop, but as the adoption of cryptocurrencies, by individuals, organisations and governments increases it’s likely they’re wrong An unknown cryptocurrency trader turned $55 million of paper wealth into $283...
Futurist keynote, Amsterdam: The Future of Money, iGaming Super Show
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more industries look to engage their new digital, omni-channel customers in new ways they often look to the gaming world for inspiration, and there’s plenty of inspiration to be had. Firstly, I’d like to thank Michael Caselli, the Editor in Chief of iGaming...
The United Nations taps blockchain to solve world hunger
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Hundreds of millions of people go hungry every night, and after a succesful pilot the UN thinks that blockchain could help them solve world hunger. Earlier this week United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) announced that 10,000 individuals had taken advantage of its trial to deliver food to Syrian...
Futurist keynote, London: Behind the scenes at Marketforce’s OpsTechFS 2017 event
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The financial services industry is going through one of the greatest transformations since its inception as it tackles not one disruption but three, namely AI, Blockchain and “Digital” Yesterday, and much to the chagrin of the audience of financial services professionals and executives who...
Futurist keynote, Dubai: The Future of Minds &Machines, Dubai IAICC International Innovation Conference
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Dubai is a city that was gifted nothing, and had to build and earn everything, and it was a great honour to speak there, in a place that is rapidly becoming the very embodiment of the future. Dubai Dubai so good they named it...
Russian researchers have created a ‘Quantum safe’ blockchain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s quantum computers will be able to crack at least seventy percent of all today’s encryption algorithms within minutes, but now Russia says they’ve created the ultimate, secure blockchain technology. Researchers at the Russian Quantum Center (RQC) announced earlier this week that they’ve created...
Toyota ties up with blockchain startups to connect its world
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain is one of the world’s most promising emerging technologies and it’s now finding its way into the automotive and transportation sectors Just a few weeks after Ford officially ousted its CEO in order to make way for a new, more future focused CEO,...
DTCC wants to put hundreds of trillions of dollars of securities transactions on the blockchain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Vice Chairman of the DTCC argues that a lack of standards is holding back blockchains adoption in the financial services industry, and he wants to change that. Last week Larry Thompson, the Vice Chairman of the US Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC),...
New blockchain tools are helping people reclaim control of their online identities
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF You lost control of your online information, and your online identity, almost a decade ago, but now companies are using new technologies to help you regain control of it The Sovrin Foundation, a non profit organisation who’s building a range of online “Self-Sovereign Identity” and...
IBM and Hyperledger launch enterprise ready blockchain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain is quickly emerging as one of the world’s most disruptive technologies, and IBM wants everyone to have access to it Following hot on the heels of announcing that it wants to be the first company to offer the world’s first universal “Quantum Computing...
Wall Street supremo’s pile into a new AI hedge fund dubbed the future of finance
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Until now the financial services industry has never been able to benefit from a network effect, but that’s about to change and it could tip Wall Street on its head. The “Network Effect” is a phenomenon known the world over, it’s where a service...
Google DeepMind uses bitcoin like tech to track NHS patient data
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Plagued by critics who accuse Google DeepMind of getting too much “free” access to NHS patient data, DeepMind’s new “bitcoin like” audit platform will let people know exactly how data is being accessed and used Google’s AI powered health tech subsidiary, DeepMind Health, is planning to...
JPMorgan unleashes artificial intelligence to automate its legal work
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With massive technology budgets and a paranoia of startups stealing a march Wall Street is going all in on innovation and automation. With companies like LawGeex and ROSS Intelligence trying to automate the legal world it was only a matter of time before the...
Blockchain and Universal Basic Income join forces to lift 22,000 children out of poverty
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Despite recent developments, if poverty was a disease governments would classify it as a pandemic, now though the unlikely union of emerging technology and the charity sector could one day drive poverty to zero. As the popularity of blockchain grows so too do the...
Futurist keynote, London: The Future of Capital Markets, Accenture Capital Markets Summit
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Investments and the capital markets, arguably, sit at the heart of our capitalist society, but they, and the industries they rely on to find Alpha, are starting to change at a faster rate than at any point in their illustrious history and it’s sending shockwaves...
Entrepreneurs think blockchain is the future of cloud computing and HPC
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Everything changes, whether we call it disruption or something else, but as the world becomes increasingly distributed, as the plumbing of the internet continues to change, we can now see a way to disintermediate the giant cloud providers, build global supercomputers and move to the...
