My joyous but painful adventures in Blockchain August 4, 2020 I love Madrid. I love the food, the weather and the people. I’ll go there (at least, in better times) at even the slightest excuse. And beyond the social culture, Madrid has a thriving business culture – especially when it comes to Fintech. In June 2017, it was the home to MoneyConf. That’s where my [...]
Top 5 Reasons why Cryptocurrencies are a waste of time July 28, 2020 Cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has been around since 2009 and Ethereum since 2015. And there are thousands of other cryptocurrencies – or cryptos for short. Many of them died during the alt-coin apocalypse. Others have managed to hodl on and barely keep themselves afloat. Not every digital token is a cryptocurrency. Some are security tokens – typically [...]
You Can Hold Politicians To Account Using Blockchain July 21, 2020 Politicians – and lots of other people, but mainly politicians – are continually trying to duck and dive around what they have committed to and what they have achieved. The media, as well as activist groups and regular citizens, spend countless hours trying to hold politicians to account. There has never been a better situation [...]
Voting and Blockchain July 14, 2020 In the days of COVID-19, there are new challenges in participating in democracy. There are unique challenges in how people vote. Traditional polling centres must be equipped to support social distancing. In the US, some cities and states are working to consolidate polling locations. And although there are no imminent elections here in the UK, [...]
Recovery Vouchers on the Blockchain July 7, 2020 In Sunday’s City AM it was reported that Chancellor Rishi Sunak is considering plans to hand £500 to every adult and £250 to every child to spend with businesses that are most affected by COVID-19 lockdown. The initial proposals include making these payments available via vouchers, travel cards or mobile phone credits. How could the [...]
Censorship – Can Blockchain Help? June 30, 2020 Freedom of speech is a passionate issue for many people. And the threats of censorship are more evident today than ever before. What solutions are available from the blockchain community? And what does it potentially mean to have a censorship-resistant platform? Numerous blockchain projects exist offering to address the issues of censorship. These include messaging [...]
Blockchain is Terrible for Supply Chain. Right? June 23, 2020 Blockchain gets a lot of bad press in general. Either the technology is being overhyped. Or it is being confused with cryptocurrency and taking on all the negativity around that. There is plenty of coverage around how blockchain won’t scale and does not have sufficient performance to be viable in the enterprise. And blockchain doesn’t [...]
Consensus: Do You Agree? June 16, 2020 Consensus is an essential concept in blockchain and distributed ledger technology. In reading many articles, it is clear that it is also one of the most misunderstood. The definition of consensus is “general agreement”. In the context of blockchain, a consensus means that the network has agreed. The confusion arises when we ask the questions: [...]
Consortia: Chicken or Egg? June 9, 2020 Building a blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution adds no value if there is only a single benefactor. The most impactful solutions involve multiple stakeholders. In most cases, many of the enterprises are competitors who have agreed to work together to solve a common industry problem – or exploit a new business model. But [...]
Blockchain, IoT and 5G June 2, 2020 5G networks are beginning to roll out across the UK as well as around the world. One of the biggest promises of 5G is the ability to connect millions of IoT devices. And Blockchain networks have three services they can perform to drive adoption and add value. IoT stands for the Internet of Things. More [...]