* Blockchain needs a native digital asset such as bitcoin; * Bitcoin is digital gold and can be as relevant as physical gold for the history of money, finance, and civilization * Bitcoin can scale * Time-stamping and anchoring are promising applications * Unrealistic expectations arise from distributed ledger hype: no reference implementation has emerged yet * Instant settlement, cash on the ledger, shared data set, and improved automation are not easy to obtain * Hardly disruptive, DLT might be evolutionary DB tech * See F. Ametrano, “Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Distributed Ledger Technology” http://ssrn.com/abstract=2832249
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Contrarian. Bright. Interesting. Food for Blockchain Thought...
L'année 2008 n'est pas seulement marquée par une crise financière majeure. C'est aussi l'année de la création d'une nouvelle monnaie révolutionnaire, totalemen…
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Un deck assez court, très pédagogique et en français, par Cyril Grunspan.
Blockchain applications live in their own digital realm, totally orthogonal to the “meat space” also known as the Real World™. Be it decentralized application or smart contracts, their reach is limited to the space they can control. Any use case projection in our reality eventually confronts the following hard fact: how can an app efficiently and securely interact with the physical world?
We need gateways to input/output with the physical realm, which are also called “oracles”.
Oracles are trusted entities signing claims about the state of the world.
Depending of what exactly we call the “physical world”, and depending of the existence or not of a consensus about the state of what we need to assess, there are different implementation of Oracles.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Interesting extension of the Oracle concept into the real (hardware) world
German digital bank Fidor is being acquired by Groupe BPCE, the second-largest banking group in France.
Fidor will continue as in independent business after the deal, announced late on Thursday, closes. Founder Matthias Kröner will remain as CEO. Financial terms of the takeover haven't been disclosed.
Kröner says in an emailed statement: "This move will allow Fidor to continue its international expansion and drive the development of our innovative digital technology even further.
"In a world of increasing volatility, it is important to be a member of a strong group and this transaction is strongly improving our overall financial sustainability."
François Pérol, Chairman of BPCE, says the deal is "a key step in the acceleration of the digital transformation of our group." BPCE was formed in 2009 through the merger of Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Epargne.
Digital-only bank Fidor was founded in Germany in 2009 and has 120,000 customers. It is unusual for two reasons — firstly, it puts a big emphasis on the idea of "community" in banking. Its message board has 350,000 members and is a key part of its offering. Fidor encourages customers to request services, changes, and offer advice to other customers.
Secondly, it's built more like an app store than a traditional bank. In Germany, Fidor offers core banking services but partners up with other companies to offer things like peer-to-peer loans and foreign exchange transfer. (It has plenty of other innovative features, like linking interest rates to Facebook likes.)
Fidor launched in the UK last September and BI interviewed Kröner in London at the time to get an idea of what the bank was about. We're re-publishing the interview below so you can see what BPCE was so excited about.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Brilliant move by French Banking Group BPCE (member of #LaBChain), as Fidor brings them several key assets like state of the art banking UX, social network approach, customer experience focus, Bitcoin and Blockchain experience, on top of a state of the art, in-house developed (and therefore fully mastered) banking operating back-end known as FidorOS (along with its array of APIs).
European Commission has submitted their plans to create a central database of digital currency users. The EU quotes the prevention of terrorist financing and money laundering for the reason behind it.The Commission stated that virtual currency transfers, including Bitcoin, are not monitored or observed by public authorities within the EU and thus, a regulatory framework for digital currency platforms must be established.“For that purpose, obliged entities need to collect, process and record personal data, and sometimes to share such data with public authorities (such as FIUs) or with private entities within the same group,” a section of the proposal reads.In relation to providing a regulatory framework for digital currency startups—which most likely will require all EU digital currency startups to collect private and sensitive information of their users—the EU Commission stated in Article 65 of 4AMLD that a regularly maintained central database of registered virtual currency users must be established by June 2019.
Laboratoire d’innovation dédié aux architectures de consensus décentralisé, LaBChain a pour objectif de mutualiser les démarches d’exploration et d’anticiper collectivement les opportunités et impacts de cette rupture technologique, en priorité dans les métiers de la banque, finance et assurance. Le 1er cas d’étude est consacré à l’identité numérique et aux problématiques KYC* (données de connaissance client).
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Nous partîmes 500, mais par un prompt renfort... Bienvenue aux nouveaux partenaires de #LaBChain
The Decentralized Autonomous Organization is a venture capital firm, like Andreessen Horowitz or Kleiner Perkins. It chooses new ideas and businesses to invest in. But the DAO isn’t run by rich white Silicon Valley dudes. It’s run by a network of machines that operate according to the same basic principles that drive the bitcoin digital currency. If you put money into the DAO, these machines let you vote on which new ideas it should invest in. The more money you put in, the more votes you get.
By the time the deadline for investing in the DAO arrived late last month, about 10,000 people had anonymously poured more than $168 million into this new online creation. That makes it the largest crowdfunded project ever. Now, it’s time for the DAO to start accepting pitches for all those anonymous people to vote on, bringing a new kind of democracy to the iconic flavor of capitalism that delivers so much modern technology.
Just one problem: So far, all the pitches are suggestions for changing the DAO.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Houston, (do) we have a (leadership) problem (?). Interesting insight from Wired on what is (not) going on in TheDAO.
The OuiShareFest 2016 edition is over and all videos are now online. There were several panels and speeches covering Blockchains at large and I was part of this one.
The Internet has enabled decentralized exchange of information, but until know, any exchange of value had to rely on a trusted third party, even in the digital economy. With Blockchain Tech, even transactions can be managed in a completely distributed fashion, removing the need for any intermediary at all: it is "the Ultimate Uberization". Does this mean corporations will eventually disappear, or morph into blockchain-based DAOs - "Decentralized Autonomous Organizations" ? Or in the contrary, will the transparency and efficiency of blockchain technology open a whole range of possibilities for businesses to reinvent their industry, hopefully for the better?
Speakers: Claire Balva- Blockchain France Philippe Dewost- Caisse des dépôts Vincent Fily- Microsoft Arno Laeven- Philips
Moderator: Benjamin Tincq- OuiShare
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Enjoyable and lively panel with Blockchain France, Microsoft and Philips Healthcare at OuiShareFest.
Blockchain. 10 letters of headache, 10 letters of wonder. Over the last few years and months, this technological piece of art has been gaining traction among developers, journalists and citizens. And quite naturally, the blockchain hype has also knocked on the doors of AXA: our corporate venture capital fund AXA Strategic Ventures invested in Blockstream, our trend sensing outposts AXA Labs reported a lot of activity in the field and I led an internal effort by the AXA Foresight squad to raise awareness on the technology and its potential.
What do insurers basically do for their consumers? They collect money from policyholders, manage it and run a process of claims to re-allocate the pooled money to the relevant policyholders. Now Blockchain allows to program trust in a distributed way, which threatens the central role of insurers in the current insurance process. If we consider the barriers to entry in the insurance sector, the disruptive potential of Blockchain is even more striking: capital constraints could be overcome by crowdfunded Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; claims management could be automated through smart contracts; the power of the brand would disappear as trust can be programmed; actuarial skills could be replaced by open logs of claims and data science.
If we look at the topic through the lens of the value chain, the disrupting power of Blockchain is all the more tangible:
1. Product design: blockchain-based products will hold more promises to customers (e.g. instant payments) than traditional ones
2. Pricing: as blockchain allows transparency of information, a combination of Blockchain and Data Science could allow dynamic price adjustments
3. Distribution: Blockchain could become a new distribution channel, as blockchain players sell services that combine well with insurance (e.g. stadium ticketing through Colu could be complemented with an additional stadium insurance option linked to the ticket)
4. Underwriting: automated contracts combined with blockchain-based identification tools such as tradle.io or uPort could enable advanced insurers to close a sale in no time
5. Claims management: with simplified products and smart contracts, the first blockchain insurers will potentially post expense ratios much lower than incumbents, all the more if back office is automated too (e.g. blockchain-based automated request for claim adjustment)
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Excellent post by @laurentbenichou , Director of Innovation & Foresight at AXA, and an active member of #laBChain !
Olivier Stern, a 31-year-old French socialist with an appetite for risk, recently invested a third of his life savings — 10,000 euros, about $11,000 — in a cryptocurrency start-up that has no legal standing and runs head-on into regulatory obstacles, yet might very well upend the mysterious world of virtual investing.The start-up, a sort of venture capital fund that calls itself the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, has essentially come out of nowhere in the last month and attracted about $152 million, at last count, from investors around the world like Mr. Stern — making it the most successful crowdfunded venture ever, by a significant margin.The venture, like so many things related to the digital currencies that cryptographers are creating on the Internet, is difficult to describe, and it may not be legal. But thousands of mostly anonymous investors have already heard about it through word of mouth and sent money — in the form of Ether, a freshly coded form of currency that has held itself out as a new and improved version of Bitcoin, the most popular virtual scrip.For these investors, in some sense it is the digital equivalent of buying into a bakery with no baker, no menu and no assurance that the ovens will even be delivered. But among the crowd that has invested, faith in the computer code that governs the project appears strong enough to override all those concerns.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
The DAO is the first fundraising process massively oversubscribed and with no leader — by design. It has now passed the $160M equivalent mark... Such a Big unforecasted experiment
Une semaine pour comprendre le phénomène Blockchain en profondeur en écoutant, en pratiquant, en partageant et en prototypant.
Du 6 au 12 juin à l’Ecole 42, Blockchain France co-organise la première édition du BlockFest. Evènement d’un nouveau genre, le BlockFest 1.0 entend étudier la blockchain en profondeur, au-delà de la théorie, et propose ainsi un format novateur autour d’ateliers pratiques, réflexions collectives et prototypage autour de projets concrets. Le BlockFest 1.0 a été pensé et organisé par une équipe pluridisciplinaire. L’évènement est sponsorisé par Deloitte, Engie, RCI Banque et la Caisse des Dépôts.
Programme NB : le programme est indicatif et peut être sujet à modifications
Lundi 6 juin
Qu’est-ce que la Blockchain ? État des lieux technologique et idéologique.
15h : Atelier – Etat des lieux des blockchains (technique) 16h : Atelier – Créer son identité sur la Blockchain 17h : Atelier – La blockchain 101 : théorie mathématique et technologies existantes 18h : Conférence – Introduction à la semaine, état des lieux des initiatives publiques et privées, réflexions sur les idéologies derrière les technologies 21h : Cocktail
Mardi 7 juin
Les applications économiques et industrielles
13h : Atelier – Découvrir Hyperledger 14h : Atelier – Exploration de la blockchain dans l’immobilier 15h : Atelier – Energie et blockchain : crédit carbone, smart grid, certification d’énergie verte… 16h : Atelier – Santé et blockchain : gestion des données médicales, détection des contrefaçons… 17h : Atelier – Enjeux judiriques de la blockchain 18h : Conférence – Pitchs de startups blockchain 20h : Cocktail
Jeudi 9 juin
Les implications Culturelles et Sociétales
14h : Stand et animation – Découvrir la blockchain par le jeu 15h : Atelier – Design d’un dispositif de reconnaissance et de valorisation des personnes et des compétences avec les registres distribués 16h : Atelier – Monnaies Locales Complémentaires et Blockchain 17h : Atelier – Supply Chain et Blockchain : traçabilité, labellisation, consommation responsable 18h : Conférence – Education, civic-tech, culture, économie collaborative… comment la Blockchain peut changer notre société ? 20h : Cocktail
Vendredi 10 juin
Travaux sur la technologie et lancement du BlockSprint
14h – Atelier : Créer son smart contract avec Solidity 15h – Atelier : le protocole Chainscript 16h – Conférence : La Blockchain, une solution aux problème de l’Internet des Objets ? 17h – Conférence : Pré-Sprint : récapitulatif de la semaine 18h – Cocktail 19h – Lancement du BlockSprint
Samedi 11 juin
BlockSprint Le BlockSprint sera un moment de création collective, pour construire des projets blockchain et une base de connaissance ouverte.
Objectifs : – Présenter des projets blockchains viables – Découvrir les blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Hyperledger) – Construire un MVP (Minimum Viable Product) au sein d’équipes pluri disciplinaires – Coupler la blockchain avec d’autres technologies (IoT, IA…)
Cadre : Un week end en équipe, à 42. Possibilité de nuit blanche, restauration et petits moments de détente aussi !
Les participants évolueront dans une logique de « coopétition », avec pour but de construire des prototypes de services, d’organisations décentralisées, de jeux, etc. et consolider la base de connaissance de l’événement.
Les critères de jugement du weekend pour chaque équipe seront donc équitablement répartis entre leur contribution « hack » et leur contribution « communauté ».
Le weekend sera ponctué de séances de mise en commun et de feedback (évaluation par les pairs – participants, sponsors et partenaires) pour un plus grand enrichissement des projets. Le but du BlockFest est que le développement des projets continue au-delà du weekend. Les récompenses sont en cours de définition (incubation, accompagnement, places pour la Devcon…).
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Fier que la Caisse des Dépôts soit partenaire du premier BlockFest à l'Ecole 42 !
Distributed autonomous organisations, or DAO, are a new form of decentralised organisation using blockchain technology. The DAO is first off the block, and it's already making waves.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
The DAO reminds me of angel groups sidecar funds. People who have a DAO token can vote, just like angel group members can vote to decide an investment. You still need somebody to do the due diligence for it to work. The risk otherwise is what we see with crowdfunding: projects get support because they are sexy, or well advertised, but the money received may not be enough to achieve anything. Since people invest small amounts they do not care, but you end up with a lot of waste.
The following is an excerpt from The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology by William Mougayar. In it,..
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
interesting article explaining how blockchain is (among other things) frictionless trust, which means that tomorrow we will be "googling" to verify records, identities, etc... more openness, the end of the clearing guilds. A new web is coming our way.
I agree with Naval that open protocols and the blockchains that underly them will be the driver of the next big wave of technology and that they will force big changes that will ultimately impact the global economy. That’s a big statement and I don’t make it casually. I do believe this.
The questions in my mind about this are when it will happen, which blockchains and protocols will emerge as the most important and valuable, and which nation states will embrace this and which nation states will not.
Sitting here in the US, I think the US is not likely to be one of the winners in this next big technological wave because our government and institutions are captured by the incumbent economic system and companies that define it. So many of the blockchain companies we invest in are forced to seriously consider leaving the US or get bypassed by companies and technologies that are being developed more freely outside of the US.
So what nation states are playing this game (of Risk?) better? That was the question I asked in my tweet reply and I got a lot of replies. Here are some of the top suggestions:
China (2)
Hong Kong (2)
Canada (2)
UK
Japan (2)
Estonia
Georgia
Singapore
Switzerland
Rwanda
Zimbabwe
Barbados
"
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Interesting thoughts from Fred Wilson leave Europe totally out of the #Blockchain game while Asia is bending its muscle.
I personally think that Europe should invest massively in the field as it both hosts some of the most brilliant minds in cryptography and open network architectures and has with Estonia one of the most advanced digital democracies.
In our estimations, 500 M€ in R&D funding and 500 M€ in investments should be a decent start...
Plus de 1600 articles sont parus sur la blockchain rien que dans les médias français en l’espace de six mois. Au même titre que le mot-valise « uberisation » l’an passé, la blockchain s’est imposée comme le grand sujet de l’année dans le monde numérique, et même au-delà. Jusqu’à plus soif… Les mêmes exemples de projets reviennent souvent en boucle, alors même que certains ne sont plus d’actualité– citons ainsi le projet de cadastre au Honduras, annoncé début 2015, et qui n’a en réalité jamais vu le jour, n’ayant même jamais été confirmé par le pays en question (à l’inverse, le gouvernement de Géorgie a, lui, annoncé cette année officiellement le lancement d’un projet en la matière, dans une relative discrétion).
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Article assez bien vu sur la gestion des horizons de temps : pour reprendre la célèbre formule de Bill Gates : « on surestime toujours les changements qui se produiront dans les deux prochaines années et on sous-estime ceux qui se produiront dans les dix suivantes. Ne vous laissez par bercer par l’inaction ».
La première fois que j’ai découvert le projet Iota, j’ai immédiatement pensé – nous sommes peu de chose – à la sympathique caissière d’une des boucheries de quartier à laquelle je me rends parfois pour faire mes courses (oui, j’ai la chance d’habiter un quartier où il y a encore quelques commerces dit de « proximité »)… Elle a en effet l’habitude de recevoir ses clients qui souhaitent payer par carte bancaire, en leur présentant un terminal de paiement électronique et de les apostropher ainsi avec un air malicieux : « A vous de travailler ! » – feignant de croire que composer son code secret à quatre chiffres est un exercice qui mérite toute notre attention…Derrière sa boutade qui la fait rire à chaque fois, sait-elle seulement qu’il y a là ainsi résumé les derniers développements les plus ingénieux concernant les systèmes de paiement modernes ? Développements qui pourraient jouer un rôle considérable dans le fameux internet des objets encore en gestation, les transferts d’ordre et les possibilités de micro-paiements…
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Une révolution dans la révolution ? Papier très clair et en français de Cyril Grunspan sur le projet #IOTA et une autre approche de la sécurisation des transactions. #FoofForThought
The primary expense that must be paid by a blockchain is that of security. The blockchain must pay miners or validators to economically participate in its consensus protocol, whether proof of work or proof of stake, and this inevitably incurs some cost. There are two ways to pay for this cost: inflation and transaction fees. Currently, Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two leading proof-of-work blockchains, both use high levels of inflation to pay for security; the Bitcoin community presently intends to decrease the inflation over time and eventually switch to a transaction-fee-only model. NXT, one of the larger proof-of-stake blockchains, pays for security entirely with transaction fees, and in fact has negative net inflation because some on-chain features require destroying NXT; the current supply is 0.1% lower than the original 1 billion. The question is, how much “defense spending” is required for a blockchain to be secure, and given a particular amount of spending required, which is the best way to get it?
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
For everyone who wants to take the (sometimes enraged) debate of Proof Of Stake vs. Proof Of Work one step further, here is an interesting and enlightening contribution linking crypto currencies, inflation, transactions fees together. Worth a thorough read(s) and probably several discussions in Think Tanks.Not exactly a beach summer reading though !
Core to the Bitcoin ethos is permissionless innovation. Without it and the level of contribution to which it gave rise Blockstream would not be on the exciting path we find ourselves today. It should not come as a surprise then that permissionless innovation is also core to Blockstream's ethos. We firmly believe that in order for Bitcoin and related technologies' potential to be fully realized they must be underpinned by a global platform that is free for any innovator to use without hesitation.The ecosystem in which we operate is changing rapidly. Innovation that was once squarely housed within the community and exclusively oriented towards its collective betterment is increasingly being conducted across a growing number of companies around the world. That growth is exciting, but there is no denying that with it comes a complex array of actors and interests, some of whom may be more opportunistic in their thinking when it comes to intellectual property rights. Ensuring that permissionless innovation continues to be the driving force in our space requires an approach that not only accounts for the increasingly complex realities of today but also of tomorrow.That is why we are taking steps to implement a defensive patent strategy.The two key elements we are announcing are our Patent Pledge and our modified version of the Innovator's Patent Agreement. Our Patent Pledge assures developers and users of our technology that we will not sue them for patent infringement, provided they comply with the terms and conditions of our pledge, which essentially asks that they not be patent aggressors themselves. Our modified version of the Innovator's Patent Agreement is a contract between Blockstream and our engineers that any patents they contribute to creating will be used only for defensive purposes. These are two practical and timely steps for us to take and we feel very fortunate to be supported by investors who understand the significance of these issues not only to our team here at Blockstream but to the realization of an open global platform underpinned by the Bitcoin protocol.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Permissionless Innovation is compatible with defensive IP strategies and Blockstream shows it brilliantly
TheDAO, première organisation autonome décentralisée sur la blockchain Ethereum, est depuis ce vendredi matin la cible d’une puissante attaque qui visait à siphonner progressivement les 11 millions d’ethers investis dans le projet. Près de 3,6 millions d’ethers ont ainsi été détournés, soit plus de 30% des fonds de la DAO. C’est un événement majeur dans la jeune histoire de l’économie décentralisée.Si le problème a vite été identifié, il n’a pas pu être contré dans l’instant même autrement que par un procédé visant à ralentir l’attaque. Un smart contract est une chose autonome que la volonté humaine n’arrête point.Les médias ne vont pas manquer de se saisir de ce sujet, qui pose évidemment de vraies questions, mais risque de les mener à des conclusions hâtives. Il a paru nécessaire, au Cercle du Coin, de fournir des explications à ceux qui souhaitent comprendre, avant de donner lui-même son opinion sur ce sujet.
Le premier livre en français entièrement dédié à la blockchain
Préface par Joël de Rosnay
Première partie – Comprendre la blockchain en 12 questions Les réponses aux questions les plus posées sur la blockchain
Deuxième partie – Les applications de la blockchain Energie, Santé, Assurances, Banques, Luxe, Cloud…
Troisième partie – Penser la blockchain : enjeux sociaux, éthiques, juridiques, politiques Avec les contributions de Gilles Babinet, Primavera de Filippi, Michel Bauwens…
Quatrième partie– La blockchain vue de l’intérieur : la parole aux acteurs Avec les interviews de Stephan Tual, Gavin Wood, Philippe Dewost & Nadia Filali
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
La Caisse des Dépôts, inspiratrice de l'initiative LaBChain, contribue au travail de pédagogie conduit par Blockchain France aux côtés de spécialistes et d'acteurs engagés.
La puissance algorithmique au service de la révolution des services : les nouvelles opportunités offertes par la technologie Blockchain
—
le mercredi 11 mai 2016 de 9h00 à 12h45
à la Bourse de Commerce (Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris)
—
L’objectif de ce séminaire était de permettre aux PME/PMI de bien mesurer quels sont les champs possibles de la Blockchain, en les confrontant directement avec les acteurs et les usages de cette technologie, qui ne semble pas connaître de frontière.
—
Programme :
9 h 00 – 9 h 15 : Accueil (petit-déjeuner)
9 h 15 – 9 h 30 : Introduction et présentation du séminaire – Denis Deschamps – CCI Paris IdF / ARIST PARIS IdF – Christophe Bricout – CAP’TRONIC
9 h 45 – 11 h 00 : Table-ronde sur la Blockchain : Qu’est-ce que c’est et pour quoi faire ? – Daniel Augot – INRIA / DG Transfert : La Blockchain, qu’est-ce que c’est ? – Alexis Collomb – CNAM : La Blockchain, pour quoi faire ? – Manuel Ortiz – AYMING : Les aides publiques et privées pour développer la Blockchain Modération : Denis Deschamps
11 h 00 – 11 h 45 : Témoignages d’entreprises avec débats animés par Blockchain France – Florent Schlaeppi : NOVERTUR – François Fort : GUACAMOL – Willian El Kaim : LA FABRIQUE DES MOBILITES – François Dorléans : STRATUMN Modération : Antoine Yeretzian
11 h 45 – 12 h 30 : Table-ronde sur la Blockchain : Quelles implications économiques et juridiques ? – Philippe Dewost – CDC : Un benchmark des opportunités de la Blockchain – Raphaël Levy – INPI : La protection du software (droit d’auteur / droit des brevets) – Les brevets et la technologie Blockchain – Thibault Verbiest et Georgie Courtois (Cabinet De Gaulle, Fleurance et Associés) : « Intelligence artificielle, objets connectés et smart contracts » Modération : François Chevillard – FC Développement
12 h 30 – 12 h 45 : Questions / Réponses
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Intervention du 11 Mai dernier à la Bourse de Commerce de Paris dans une table ronde consacrée aux impacts économiques des technologies Blockchain, dans le cadre d'un séminaire d'une matinée sur le sujet.
CLINICAL trials are a murky old world. The pharmaceutical industry is keen to get new drugs to market and researchers are just as keen to report positive results. This can produce some rather unpleasant side-effects. Selective reporting of data from trials is rife. In one infamous example, a 2001 study reported that paroxetine, an antidepressant, was safe and effective for treating the illness in teenagers. It later emerged, however, that this was based on new measures of the drug’s effectiveness, introduced only after the drug had failed to show any significant improvement in the outcomes that had been specified when the trial was first drawn up. Later studies showed that the drug increased the risk of suicidal behaviour in children.How to guard against such things got Greg Irving, a family doctor and a researcher at the University of Cambridge, thinking. He came up with a way to improve the reporting of clinical trials with the blockchain technology underlying bitcoin, a digital currency. The blockchain is a database that acts as a public ledger of all transactions with the currency, and is thought to be almost completely tamper-proof because it is validated and stored independently on thousands of different computers worldwide. This provides a way, Dr Irving reckons, to check that results have not been fudged.
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
Decentralized Ledger Technology (aka DLT) could be good for health. Not surprised that Philips Healthcare is investigating the topic (and is present in Boston at the MIT and Common Accord conference on Digital Identities, Contracts and Blockchains) but how will such ledgers be secured and permissioned remains the question...
A new entity called The DAO, created using the Bitcoin-inspired financial platform Ethereum, has collected more than $100 million worth of cryptocurrency since late April, and will use the funds to support projects in the sharing economy. The DAO is being touted as a model for a new kind of organization, created and run using blockchain software rather than conventional corporate structures.Nearly everything having to do with Bitcoin and blockchain sounds like some mix of sci-fi, magic, and a pyramid scheme, so bear with us as we try and unpack all that.DAO is an acronym for Distributed Autonomous Organization, and until now, they’ve been a mostly theoretical construct. DAOs (of which The DAO is just one example) have bylaws just like any company. But rather than existing solely as legal documents, those bylaws are hard-coded into a blockchain—a cloud-based, secure financial ledger, of which Bitcoin is the most famous example.In the past year, big banks and enterprise tech companies have started taking blockchain technology seriously, exploring how to use it for secure financial transfers and so-called “smart contracts,” which would enforce financial agreements through cloud-based financial code. Blockchains are billed as much more secure than existing financial infrastructure, whose vulnerabilities have been highlighted in recent days.The DAO is basically one big, complex smart contract comparable to a venture capital fund. It’s offering its own voting shares—called DAO tokens—in exchange for a cryptocurrency called Ether, though for regulatory reasons, The DAO states its tokens are not a form of equity. Ether is the financial component of the Ethereum blockchain. One Ether is currently worth around ten dollars, and the currency’s total market value as of this writing is over $800 million (no, really).
Philippe J DEWOST's insight:
The DAO fund raising process is not over and already raises a trove of questions driven by its unforecasted success (15 to 20% of the total Ether supply could be absorbed by it) and unclear future (how will it deploy such proceedings) not mentioning its by-design absence of leadership. Uncharted territories !
Our expectation is that there will be a lot of work that is done around our APIs,” said TR Ramachandran, group country manager for India and South Asia at Visa.
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Contrarian. Bright. Interesting. Food for Blockchain Thought...