This is a Charles Brett’s start-of-the-week Enterprise Times ‘blockchain catch-up’ for Week 1 of 2021. Necessarily it is idiosyncratic and selective.
It is not intended to be comprehensive but does seek to highlight ‘Quick Takes’ on specific developments as well interesting pieces to read, a listing of some (not all) announcements/press releases and pointers to upcoming events.
Quick Takes – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 1, 2021
Blockchain is changing how companies can engage with customers
In this HBR article, the authors’ basic proposition is “Executives often don’t want change, because they’re weary of the costs and risks associated with embracing innovation. Yet, despite the obstacles, transformation is important for any company looking to survive and thrive in this era of digital disruption.” This provides the justification for examining how Interac (and Alectra Utilities and IBM) in Canada exploited blockchain – “specifically, (how) its embrace of blockchain — which allows assets to be exchanged with real-time settlement as certain conditions are met — is helping Interac to transform entire industries, and itself in the process“.
The ‘case study’ is an interesting one. It involves electricity usage, EVs and the need to foster changes in customer behaviour. “As EV ownership grows, peak demand from energy-hungry EV chargers could outstrip supply, forcing utilities to invest in upgrading capacity — at significant cost. Distributing the same load over time would solve the problem, but utility companies lacked a means to incentivize consumers to change behavior. … (T)he blockchain infrastructure created an auditable trail of verifiable data for each kilowatt of energy saved or delivered and every token awarded. It also ensured that homeowners could redeem their tokens.”
Quick Take: The Interac example is worthwhile. The more grandiose ‘management lessons’ are less so. “Using blockchain, business ecosystems can embed incentive mechanisms within themselves to promote more sustainable behaviors” is one example.
7 pieces to read – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 1, 2021
- JP Morgan says Bitcoin could surge to $146,000 in long term
- Enterprise blockchain is at a private-public crossroads
- Will the United States government launch a new blockchain office?
- Consumers don’t understand blockchain but covet what it enables, the survey reveals
- Motley Fool: why your 2021 resolution should be to buy more blockchain stocks
- OCC Chief Counsel’s interpretation on national bank and federal savings association authority to use independent node verification networks and stablecoins for payment activities
- Newsweek: will Bitcoin become the new gold standard?
Selected announcements/press releases – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 1, 2021
- Telos launches T-Bonds, a DeFi tool for unlocking liquidity (T-Bonds are NFTs that perform similarly to U.S. Treasury Bonds) (press release)
- PAYMYNT Financial, acquires cryptocurrency LettucePay (press release)
- Stratis brings Blockchain-as-a-Service to all businesses via its C# native platform (press release)
- Future FinTech applied blockchain technology-related software copyrights with China Copyright Protection Center (press release)
- IBM Appoints Gary D. Cohn as Vice Chairman (press release)
- Elliptic recognizes cryptoasset businesses for compliance (announcement)
- The crypto and blockchain projects with the biggest buzz in 2020 (opinion)
- Mastering Blockchain – Third Edition (book).
Selected upcoming events
- Crypto Finance Conference Returns to St. Moritz in January 2021
- Geneva Blockchain Congress, 25 January 2021
- European Blockchain Convention (EBC Barcelona), 25-26 January 2021
- World Crypto-Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cyber-security (BCB), 04-05 March 2021
- International Conference on Big Data and Blockchain (BDAB), 20-21 March 2021
- Blockchance Europe 2021 (July 7th-9th, 2021).