x
90 Percent Of Top Executives Expect Blockchain To Transform Markets In Five Years
Most financial firms expect to see the transformative impact of Blockchain technology and its adoption in the next three to five years, according to a study conducted by the Bain and TABB Group. It says that more than 89 percent of financial markets executives interviewed expect distributed ledgers to be adopted by financial institutions by 2020 and its impact on clearing and settlement would be “transformative.”
One of the marked changes that would be expected of the technology is its ability to ensure an estimated $15-30 bln total cost and capital savings to global financial market ecosystems. Much of these savings will come from the ability of firms to replace manual, redundant and error-prone processing methods.
Firms will also be able to quickly and less expensively harness reference data that is both richer in detail and more fully reconciled, the report says, adding that it is hard to predict exactly when and where the technology’s applications will reach scale and what kind of impact it will have across markets.
Though there have been several studies into the importance of the technology, this study shows that the level of its knowledge among top executives has improved. According to Deloitte, in its “Blockchain Enigma. Paradox. Opportunity” study, the principal challenge associated with Blockchain is a lack of awareness of the technology, especially in sectors other than banking, and a widespread lack of understanding of how it works which has been hampering investment and the exploration of ideas.
In its other report, “Building up Blockchain,” Deloitte notes that nearly 40 percent of executives surveyed know little or nothing about Blockchain. When juxtaposed with the Bain and TABB report, the outcome could be considered as very encouraging.
Conducted among 200 financial executives worldwide, 70 percent of the business leaders polled believe that the industry is suffering from a serious shortage of talent “versed in both the vagaries of the Blockchain and the complex plumbing of the financial services ecosystem.” Some of these executives say they are under pressure to show near-term results and they must gain the attention, understanding and commitment of top management. They are now struggling with business cases and where to apply their efforts.
It says: “It’s unclear how the regulatory environment will evolve in different jurisdictions. Getting ready for DLT requires substantial investment at a time when many firms are facing financial constraints, and it can involve working through tricky and expensive issues with legacy IT systems and processes.”
However, while 38 percent of firms still take a wait and see approach, the report finds that firms can identify “no regret” DLT readiness preparations to navigate uncertainty and to gain a competitive edge. Nonetheless, it established that the biggest impact from the technology will be achieved only when a critical mass of the ecosystem participates.
The Ethereum development startup ConsenSys has released a new white paper for its projects in Dubai at the city’s World Government Summit. The paper, titled “Blockchain, Hyperconnectivity and the City of the Future,” details new plans for innovation focusing on smart cities and the Internet of Things. "We are thrilled to see Dubai emerge as a home for fast forward, broad focus Blockchain innovation and are looking forward to ongoing opportunities to work with Dubai government and corporates toward accomplishing many ambitious goals,” ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin told the International Business Times.
The startup has an established history in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, having previously participated in the Dubai Future Accelerator scheme. Microsoft and IBM are also active in the space. Further details about the new Blockchain projects are expected in the coming weeks but local government services are likely to lie at the heart of the proposals as Dubai becomes an increasingly active Blockchain hub. What do you think about ConsenSys’ plans for Dubai? Let us know in the comments section below.
Over the past month, many Bitcoin exchanges, startups, and experts weighed in on the debate between Segregated Witness (SegWit) and Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) supporters. The main claim of SegWit supports is that nearly 60 percent of nodes within the Bitcoin network are supporting the activation of SegWit. According to 21 Inc’s Bitnodes, approximately 56 percent of all Bitcoin nodes are in support of Bitcoin Core 0.13.0 and the other two minor updates of Bitcoin Core which includes SegWit support on testnet.
In comparison, BU supporters and developers, including prominent angel investor and Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver, claimed that Bitcoin miners are showing increasing support of SegWit. A chart called “Mining Pool Support by Proposal” provided by Coin Dance and shared by Ver, demonstrated that 17.3 percent of miners support BU while the other 16.67 percent supported the activation of SegWit.
Samson Mow, COO of the world’s longest running Bitcoin exchange BTCC, and Alistair Milne, Bitcoin investor at Atlanta Digital Currency Fund, expressed their support for SegWit stating that SegWit’s transaction malleability solution opens the door for Lightning, a micropayment solution, that is ultimately beneficial for the long-term growth of Bitcoin. Milne further emphasized the majority support of Bitcoin nodes for SegWit, requesting Bitcoin miners to start listening to its users.
In response, Gang Wu, HaoBTC CEO, offered his strong stance against SegWit, describing the Bitcoin Core development team’s efforts in pushing SegWit development instead of a 2MB hardfork which they previously agreed on at the Hong Kong consensus conference as a “betrayal” to the mining community. Although HaoBTC later published a follow-up statement to explain their neutral attitude towards BU and SegWit, the exchange firmly reaffirmed that it intends to support the Hong Kong agreement that the organization signed.
In mid last month, Bitcoin and security expert Andreas Antonopoulos published a blog post in response to Tuur Demeester’s article entitled “Bitcoin: digital gold or digital cash? Both.” In it, Antonopoulos stated that organizations or people that are objecting to Lightning are pushing for off-chain trusted third party custodial or centralized platforms based on trust.
Antonopoulos later acknowledged that he supports SegWit, not necessarily because of its scaling solution but because it provides opportunities for two-layer solutions like Lightning or TumbleBit to enter. “I'm for SegWit, not because of scaling, but because it offers solutions to many technical issues in Bitcoin,” said Antonopoulos.
Still, Bitcoin developers like Lightning co-author Thaddeus Dryja firmly believe SegWit can be described as an efficient scaling solution, as it increases Bitcoin block size to at least 2.1MB. On testest, Dryja was able to find 3.7MB blocks, a size 3.7x larger than the current block size. “I have a script that will spam testnet and make 3.7MB blocks. It’s not an 800KB regular block with txids and output scripts, and a 2.9MB witness block with just a bunch of signatures. It’s a single block, that looks pretty much the same as old blocks with a few extra requirements, that’s 3.7MB,” said Dryja.
While BU supporters including Ver and Justus Ranvier, lead architect at Stash Crypto, all believe that the elimination of transaction malleability and the entrance of two-layer solutions are necessary for the long-term growth of Bitcoin, they don’t believe SegWit is the best method of doing so.
Ver told Cointelegraph:
“I think ending transaction malleability is great for Bitcoin. The current SegWit soft fork is just one of many many ways that transaction malleability can be ended, but there are many other proposals on the table that may work as well as, or even better than SegWit.”
In response to Ver’s preference of other solutions, Alex Bergeron from Blockstream stated that other solutions like Tom Zander’s “Flexible Transactions” aren’t viable alternatives, as they aren’t backward compatible, received little to no peer review and aren’t technically sound.
BTCC COO Samson Mow gave Cointelegraph a similar statement:
“The Bitcoin Core contributors, the entire technical community, wallet developers, many mining pools and major exchanges all believe a SegWit soft-fork is the path forward to end transaction malleability and for a safe yet quick way to increase the block size. Flexible Transactions from BU is not even remotely an option as the concept has already been dismissed by the technical community, and more importantly, there is no functioning code available - it's vaporware.”
The lack of peer review has also proven to be an issue for Bitcoin Unlimited, as the Bitcoin Unlimited team recently found buggy codes within the software. The lack of peer review ultimately caused the loss of 13 BTC for Bitcoin unlimited miners.
At this stage of Bitcoin development, it is of utmost importance to the Bitcoin development community, users, companies and mining community to push for the activation of a safer alternative. Considering Bitcoin Unlimited’s lack of peer review and software which isn’t ready for deployment, SegWit seems to be the best alternative so far.
Industry leaders and large-scale Bitcoin companies like Coinbase and Blockchain have already expressed their support for SegWit. The Blockchain is listed as “SegWit ready” in the SegWit Adoption list of the Bitcoin Core development team.
Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
